This exclusive investigation by journalist Bryan Gibel uses previously classified documents to piece together the story of unofficial negotiations between the US and Cuba from Eisenhower to Obama. A fascinating and unique piece of scholarship that bears squarely on the prospects of renewed relations in the near term.
Lessons from Diplomacy with Cuba during the Cold War During numerous presidential debates, stump speeches and interviews, Barack Obama declared his willingness to negotiate without preconditions with Cuba and other countries where diplomatic relations are currently frigid. In late November 2008, Cuban President Raúl Castro extended a standing offer to meet with the United States to negotiate normalized relations. “Let Cubans come to visit with their families. Let Americans come to Cuba,” Castro told actor Sean Penn in a rare interview with the U.S. media. “With the United States, every objective possibility exists…We should meet in a neutral place. Perhaps we could meet at Guantanamo. We must meet and begin to solve our problems.”1
If Obama sits down with Castro, he will be the first U.S. President to meet with a Cuban head of state since the 1950s. But will he seriously pursue Castro’s offer to work towards normalized relations? As in nearly all of his major statements on policy, Obama’s talk on Cuba makes direct reference to breaking from the past and renewing U.S. standing and leadership in a new era. But Obama’s administration would not be the first to consider normalizing relations with Cuba via direct negotiation. During the height of the Cold War, the U.S. executive branch under Kennedy and Nixon/Ford pursued a series of secret negotiations with the Cuban government with the goal of improving the strained relationship between the hulking superpower and its defiant neighboring island. As I will document, the possibility of reestablishing formal diplomatic relations and ending the economic embargo was considered as an option and advocated by major players under each administration. Negotiations also produced substantial steps toward rapprochement, including lifting the ban on trade between Cuba and subsidies of U.S. companies in third countries, a bilateral anti-hijacking agreement and the release of political prisoners from Cuban prisons.
Yet the economic embargo is still in place, nearly 50 years after it was first announced in 1962. It is my contention that the efforts at direct diplomacy between the United States and Cuba carried out during 1960s and early 1970s offer an important glimpse into a period when the conflict between the two countries congealed into the simmering state of mistrust and hostility that pervades today. As I will argue, efforts at diplomacy during this period never resolved the major conflicts in U.S.–Cuban relations due to four recurrent reasons: inflexible and unreasonable diplomatic demands, domestic political pressure towards hard-line tactics, interventionist foreign policy, and contradictory signs and actions with regard to the negotiating process.
First, The United States sometimes made inflexible demands that required fundamental changes to Cuba’s internal political system as a precondition for improved relations. Cuba found this unacceptable. Alternatively, Cuba sometimes placed the lifting on the U.S. embargo as a precondition for normalized diplomatic relations. Second, U.S. electoral politics tended to pull foreign policy towards hard-line tactics to get Cuban –American support or to appear tough on communism. At times, key players involved in foreign policy thus viewed an improved relationship as unimportant or unwanted. Third, Cuban foreign policy in Africa and Latin America clashed with U.S. interests abroad and amplified fears of Soviet collusion, thereby heightening tension significantly. Aggressive anti-American rhetoric by Fidel Castro often added to strain as well. As a result, most Cuban proposals for improving relations were viewed as half-hearted and deceitful, and were therefore ultimately dismissed or rejected. Finally, motions toward conciliation made by each U.S. administration were almost always accompanied by contradictory policies that were either openly hostile or interpreted as such. These contradictions generally made rapprochement unrealistic and contributed greatly to each failure to resolve the United States– Cuba quandary. Attempts at détente with Cuba during the 1960s and 1970s were all derailed by the factors outlined above. If Barack Obama hopes to write a new chapter in U.S.–Cuban relations, both sides will have to consciously avoid the patterns of enmity that were established at the height of the Cold War.
The purpose of this investigation is not to advocate normalizing relations with Cuba. Rather, it seeks to better understand the way Cold War history informs and affects contemporary policy dilemmas, i.e. negotiating directly with countries that have long been considered adversarial to the United States. After an in depth study of direct negotiations with Cuba from JFK to Gerald Ford, I will look more closely at Obama’s policy proposals towards Cuba to determine to what extent they reflect or reject the themes of past diplomatic stalemates. Rather than simply looking at a chronology of events, I aim to provide a better understanding of the process by which negotiations progressed and ultimately failed. As such, a major focus of my analysis encompasses the discussions and debates that led to particular policy decisions on both sides. To begin, I look at a series of declassified government documents on secret negotiations between Kennedy and Castro to normalize relations against the specter of the Bay Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Secret Attempts at Negotiation in the Shadow of Nuclear War: JFK, Camelot and Castro
When John F. Kennedy took office as the 35th President of the United States on January 20, 1961, diplomatic relations with Cuba had been severed less than three weeks before. On January 3, the Cuban government delivered a note to the U.S. embassy demanding that it limit its diplomatic delegation to eleven persons. In response, President Dwight Eisenhower announced later that day that he was termination diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba, stating that, “It is my hope and my conviction that in the not too distant future it will be possible for the historic friendship between us once again to find its reflection in normal relations of every sort.”2
Almost half a century later the embassies in each country have never been reinstated. The same month that Eisenhower announced he was breaking diplomatic relations with Cuba, the Cuban government expropriated over 70,000 acres of property owned by United States sugar companies.3 It would go on to forge a military alliance with the Soviet Union, making normalized relations with the United States extremely difficult.
Another reason relations were problematic undoubtedly relates to Eisenhower’s under the table plans to overthrow the recently victorious Cuban revolution. On January 19, 1961, the day before JFK’s inaugurations, records of a meeting between the incoming and outgoing presidents and their chief advisers states that, “President Eisenhower said with reference to guerilla forces which are opposed to Castro that it was the policy of this government to help such forces to the utmost. At the present time, we are helping train anti-Castro forces in Guatemala. It was his recommendation that this effort be continued or accelerated.”4 Not surprisingly, Eisenhower’s public support for normal relations was not achievable against a context of paramilitary aggression, and Kennedy inherited a deeply hostile relationship with Cuba that was spiraling towards violent conflict as he began his presidency.
The purpose of this paper is not to detail aggression against Cuba by the JFK administration; the numerous covert acts of sabotage and assassination attempts on Castro during the early 1960s are well documented elsewhere. The most famous adventure by Kennedy against Castro took place from April 17 through April 19 at Playa Girón, Cuba, known to the United States as the Bay of Pigs. After the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of thermo-nuclear war in October 1962, normalizing relations between the two countries appeared impossible. However, previously classified documents reveal that a secret initiative by Kennedy towards the end of his presidency sought just that.
At his first press conference after being sworn in, Kennedy stated publicly the White House had “no plan at present to resume diplomatic relations with Cuba.”5 A few months later, direct contact between the Kennedy administration and the Cuban government was made informally, not long after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. At 2 a.m. on August 17, 1961, Richard Goodwin, Assistant Special Counsel to the President, approached Ché Guevara at a party after a conference of the Organization of American States (OAS) held in Punta del Este, Uruguay. According to Goodwin, Ché spoke with him frankly about Cuba’s interest in improving relations with the United States. Guevara also stated the terms Cuba would set for such negotiations:
1. That they would not give back the expropriated [American] properties [in Cuba] – the factories and banks – but they could pay for them in trade.
2. They could agree not to make any political alliance with the East—although this would not affect their sympathies.
3. They would have free elections—but only after a period of institutionalizing the revolution had been completed. In response to my question he said that this included the establishment of a one-party system.
4. Of course, they would not attack Guantanamo. (At this point he laughed as if at the absurdly self-evident nature of such a statement.)
5. He indicated, very obliquely, and with evident reluctance because of the company in which we were talking, that they could also discuss the activities of the Cuban revolution in other countries.6
Goodwin then reported that Guevara recognized such issues were contentious and that negotiations could begin with smaller concerns, but “they could discuss no formula that would mean giving up the type of society to which they were dedicated.” Ché knew that making a one-party system in Cuba non-negotiable was most likely unacceptable from Kennedy’s point of view. On the other hand, he did openly offer to discuss the major items of contention between the U.S. and Cuba that he didn’t perceive to be encroachments on Cuba’s internal sovereignty—including relations with the Soviet Union, foreign interventionism and U.S. claims on expropriated properties.
In response, Goodwin wrote a memorandum to Kennedy on September 1, 1961, in which he recommended covertly promoting paramilitary activities that appeared to originate within Cuba, establishing a “psychological warfare group,” and “destruction of economic targets important to the Cuban economy.”7 His recommendations were turned into action through a broad program of covert violence called Operation Mongoose, which was a pillar of U.S. policy towards Cuba until the missile crisis in 1962. JFK also sought to isolate Cuba politically and economically. On February 3, 1962, he signed proclamation 3447 establishing an embargo on all trade with Cuba, effective February 7.8 Nobody knew at the time that the embargo would still be in place over 45 years later.
However, after staring nuclear apocalypse in the eyes for two weeks in October, JFK began a more concerted effort towards conciliation with Castro in early 1963. During fall of the previous year, a lawyer named James Donovan arranged to trade $53 million in food and medicine for over 1,000 prisoners captured during the Bay of Pigs invasion. That year the CIA began accumulating intelligence reports that Deputy CIA Director Richard Helms described as “suggesting Cuban interest in a rapprochement with the United States.” 9 As a result, Kennedy decided to test the test the waters of a diplomatic resolution to the U.S–Cuba conflict via diplomatic measures.
A top secret memorandum from Gordon Chase, the Latin American Specialist on JFK’s National Security Council (NSC), from March 4, 1963, documents Kennedy’s newly found determination to negotiate a better relationship. “The President does not agree that we should make the breaking of Sino/Soviet ties a non-negotiable point,” Chase wrote. “We don’t want to present Castro with a condition that he obviously cannot fulfill. We should start thinking along more flexible lines.”10 The next month, Chase submitted another memorandum to National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy in which he stated, “We are all concerned about solving our Cuba problem, but so far, we have been looking seriously only at one side of the coin—ways to hurt Castro by varying degrees of over an covert nastiness.”11 Despite identifying obstacles such as the “domestic political situation” and “Castro’s reluctance,” Chase advocate that Kennedy begin to approach “the other side of the coin—quietly enticing Castro over to us.” In the same memorandum Chase argued that, “In the short run, we would probably be able to neutralize at least two of our main worries about Castro—the reintroduction of offensive missiles and Cuban subversion. In the long run,” he declares, “we would be able to work on eliminating Castro at our leisure and from a good vantage point.” In order to achieve these goals, Chase encouraged Kennedy to maintain “our present nasty policy” to wield as leverage for future diplomacy through intimidation.
While Chase’s motives were clearly far from altruistic, his focus on negotiation and appeasement was a new approach toward relations with Cuba. In May 1963, Washington found an unsuspected method of communication to begin secret negotiations with Communist Cuba: newswoman Lisa Howard from the American Broadcast Company. On April 22 in Havana, Howard interviewed Castro for nearly five hours for a news report. When she returned to the United States she debriefed with the U.S. government and passed on an important message: “It appears that Fidel Castro is looking for a way to reach a rapprochement with the United States Government,” CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms wrote in a secret memorandum. “He said he considered the U.S. limitation on exile raids to be a proper step toward accommodation.”12 Helms also reported Howard had a direct line to Castro through his personal physician and trusted friend, Dr. René Vallejo, and she was willing and eager to arrange future meetings under a shroud of secrecy.
On September 23, 1963, Howard arranged for an informal meeting at a gathering at her house with U.S. Deputy United Nations Ambassador William Attwood and Cuban UN Ambassador Carlos Lechuga. Both men spoke of their government’s interest in pursuing a diplomatic solution to their problems, and Attwood and Howard made contact with Vallejo and Lechuga several times in the next month to try to work out the details to hold a series of secret negotiations. While things progressed behind the scenes, Lechuga made an anti-American speech on October 7 that he had warned Attwood about ahead of time. Regardless, his rhetoric resulted in a public clash with United States UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson on the floor of the UN.13
Shortly thereafter, Gordon Chase recounted Stevenson’s blunt statement of United States’ conditions for normalized relations: “If Castro wanted peace with his neighbors, he need only do three things—stop being a Soviet stooge, stop trying to subvert other nations, and start carrying out the promises of his revolution regarding constitutional rights.” In the same memorandum, Chase wrote that the Cubans made another overture for negotiations on the 31st of October:
Vallejo called Miss Howard, apologizing for the delay…He said Castro would very much like to talk to the U.S. official anytime and appreciated the importance of discretion to all concerned. Castro would therefore be willing to send a plane to Mexico to pick up the official and fly him to a private airport near Varadero where Castro would talk to him alone. The plane would fly him back immediately after the talk. 14
A garbled Oval Office audio tape from November 5 records a conversation between McGeorge Bundy and JFK in which the president clearly says that that Attwood should be taken off the U.S. payroll if he is to travel to Cuba so the White House will have a valid alibi to deny official talks if there is a leak to the press.15 On November 22, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Attwood sent another memorandum to Chase informing him of a White House decision to meet with Cuban officials at the United Nations for preliminary discussions before any decision was to be made on a secret diplomatic trip to Cuba. “We would like to know more about what is on Castro’s mind before committing ourselves to further talks in Cuba,”16 Attwood wrote. A meeting was setup with Lechuga to discuss an agenda for future talks. Only a few hours after Attwood typed up his memorandum on the subject, JFK was killed. Washington was turned upside-down.
At the time of Kennedy’s murder, several factors can be identified that were pivotal in influencing the course diplomatic efforts with Cuba had taken. On the positive side, Cuba’s interest in negotiating and its willingness to compromise on foreign policy provided an opportunity for rapprochement through direct negotiation. Near the end of his presidency, Kennedy also seemed genuinely interested in improving relations with Cuba. But hostilities and fears between the two governments still ran wild, and the bipolar mentality of Cold War affairs made cooperation tenuous at best.
French journalist Jean Daniel reported that Castro sat down when he received news of the assassination and said repeatedly, “Es una mala noticia.” (“This is bad news.”)17 Just days before, Daniel had told Castro of a conversation he had with Kennedy on October 24 in which JFK told him, “I believe there is not country in the world, including the African regions, including all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime.”18
In the wake of Kennedy’s death, Chase sent a memorandum to Bundy describing the difficulties of continuing to pursue of secret negotiations with Castro under the Johnson administration.
The events of November 22 would appear to make accommodations with Castro an even more doubtful issue than it was. While I think President Kennedy could have accommodated with Castro and gotten away with it with a minimum of domestic heat, I’m not sure about President Johnson. For one thing, a new President who has no background of being successfully nasty to Castro and the Communists (e.g. President Kennedy in October, 1962) would probably run a greater risk of being accused, by the American people, of ‘going soft’.19
On February 12, 1964, Castro tried to revive the negotiations that had been initiated under Kennedy. Using Lisa Howard as an intermediary, he sent a verbal message to Lyndon Johnson in which he made his case for rapprochement crystal clear:
Tell the President (and I cannot stress this too strongly) that I seriously hope that Cuba and the United States can eventually sit down in an atmosphere of good will and of mutual respect and negotiate our differences. I believe that there are no areas of contention between us that cannot be discussed and settled with a climate of mutual understanding. But first, of course, it is necessary to discuss our differences. I now believe that this hostility between Cuba and the United States is both unnatural and unnecessary—and it can be eliminated.
In the same message, Castro expressed his understanding that electoral politics could make public negotiations a major campaign concern for LBJ, but stressed that such concerns didn’t have to derail the diplomatic process initiated under Kennedy.
If the President feels it necessary during the campaign to make bellicose statements about Cuba or even to take some hostile action—if he will inform me, unofficially, that a specific action is required because of domestic political considerations, I shall understand and not take any serious retaliatory action…I realize fully the need for absolute secrecy, if he should decide to continue the Kennedy approach. I revealed nothing at that time…I have revealed nothing since…I would reveal nothing now.20
Both these statements reveal that Castro placed rapprochement with the U.S. as a top priority, and he was willing to compromise extensively to promote cooperation. However, no record exists of Johnson attempting to resume talks with Castro. Rather, Chase recommended that Howard be removed from the process entirely so discussions could be shifted to easily monitored, informal talks at the United Nations.21 If such conversations ever occurred, they never progressed in any substantive direction. As Carlos Lechuga explained in an oral history project conducted in 1995, “eventually Johnson did just break off the dialogue and well, you know the rest of the story.”22
Another failed step toward rapprochement initiated by Robert Kennedy around the same time dealt with travel restrictions. In a memorandum to Secretary of State Dean Rusk dated December 12, 1962, RFK argued that prosecuting U.S. citizens for travel to Cuba was troublesome and unadvisable, especially with a large number of student protest trips planned for the near future. As a result, he advocated removing restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, arguing that doing so would be “more consistent with our views of a free society and would contrast with such things as the Berlin Wall and Communist controls on such travel.”23
A memorandum dated the next day documents that the Department of State agreed that the travel ban should be lifted immediately, so long as traveler’s to Cuba were “required to obtain passports specifically validated for such travel.”24 However, Undersecretary of State George Ball overruled the recommendations and “decided against any kind of relaxation of travel controls to Cuba.”25 A memorandum for the President on May 21, 1964 apparently closed the discussion on lifting travel restrictions to Cuba. In that document McGeorge Bundy asked Johnson to confirm that he did not want a relaxation of such controls.26 Apparently LBJ agreed, since travel restrictions to the island were never lifted under his administration. Instead, the Johnson Administration led a campaign in the OAS to put in place a “mandatory termination of all trade and diplomatic relations” with Cuba, which passed by a vote of 15 to 4 on July 26, 1964.27 On October 17 of the same year, Johnson also signed a bill that allowed the U.S. government to sell certain assets of the Cuban Government that were held in the United States.28
What are the main reasons for the failure of direct negotiations with Cuba during the early 1960s? The most obvious reason is Kennedy’s assassination just as his plans for negotiating with Castro were building steam. However, it is unclear that rapprochement would have been achieved even if JFK hadn’t been assassinated. A look back at the four reasons for failed diplomacy that I outlined at the beginning of this essay is informative.
Generally speaking, the U.S. refrained from making demands that Cuba make fundamental changes to its internal political system as a precondition for negotiations, but talks never really got far enough for many demands to be made. However, after Ché presented a list of Cuban conditions for improving relations—the most important of which was Cuban sovereignty to determine its internal political system—the U.S. broke off contact entirely without even discussing matters of foreign policy. Indeed, both Guevara and Castro made clear repeatedly that Cuba would not accept, under any circumstances, any agreement that compromised the government’s sovereignty and autonomy within its own borders.
Electoral politics also certainly played a factor in Lyndon Johnson’s decision to break off any negotiations with Cuba, as explicitly stated by his top aides. Clearly, LBJ didn’t hold negotiations with Cuba at a premium; given Cold War fears and domestic political concerns, he ran the hard-line anti-Communist gambit instead.
With regard to Cuban foreign policy, Cuban subversion in Latin America was mentioned as a concern by the U.S., but both Fidel and Ché said explicitly that such activities, as well as Cuba’s relationship with the U.S.S.R. were up for negotiation. Moreover, while Castro and other Cuban officials did engage in anti-American rhetoric, sometimes at the very same time they were offering steps toward conciliation under the table, this should hardly have been a reason to derail diplomacy, especially given the kind of overtures Castro made in his verbal message to LBJ transmitted by Lisa Howard.
Perhaps in the end, negotiations under JFK never produced any tangible results because any motions Kennedy and Camelot made towards conciliation were always concealed by a shroud of secrecy and set against a contradictory backdrop of covert violence, attempted assassinations and blatant hostility. While Kennedy may have become intent on finding a diplomatic solution to U.S.–Cuban tensions, many in his administration viewed rapprochement as undesired or unacceptable, especially in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis. When Kennedy was killed, any plausible chance at normalizing relations with Cuba appeared to die with him. However, under President Nixon and especially Gerald Ford, the State Department opened a new chapter of negotiations with Castro. As we shall see, those talks were characterized by many of the themes that led to collapsed diplomacy under LBJ. Negotiations under Nixon and Ford did, however, produce some tangible results.
Motions toward Détente under Nixon, Ford and Henry Kissinger
Nixon’s role in the Watergate Scandal and the Vietnam Ware are prominent in his legacy. However, the President and his National Security Adviser/Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were also influential as the architects of détente, a set of policies aimed at reducing tension between the United States and socialist countries like China, the Soviet Union and Vietnam. In February 1972, Richard Nixon visited the People’s Republic of China and met with Mao Zedong. That May, he travelled to Moscow and met with Leonid Brezhnev. This partial thawing of the Cold War had direct implications for U.S.–Cuban relations, despite Nixon’s avowed hatred for Castro. According to Philip Brenner:
By the early 1970s, several factors coalesced to reduce the tension between Cuba and the United States. The Richard Nixon administration had fashioned as its hallmark détente with both the Soviet Union and China: Anticommunism was less in vogue. At the same time, Cuba had curtailed its practice of supporting armed revolution in the hemisphere and had begun to develop state-to-state relations with several Latin American countries.29
Soon after taking office, Nixon requested that a study be prepared to look into the advantages and disadvantages of U.S. policy towards Cuba as inherited from Johnson.30 At an NSC review group meeting in September 1969, Kissinger considered the advantages to the U.S. of maintaining a Communist regime in Cuba to use “in a squeeze play vis-à-vis the USSR” as compared to promoting a more prosperous relationship with Cuba that might induce it to distance itself from Soviet Domination. At the same meeting, he also conveyed an order from President Nixon to look into para-military pressure as another option that should be taken into consideration.31
In the end, Kissinger’s decisions regarding U.S. relations with Cuba were based on calculated self-interest, but he kept an open mind about where U.S. interests actually lay. He made this explicit in a national security memorandum issued on February 16, 1971, to the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of the CIA. “The President has directed that a comprehensive review of U.S. policies and programs in the Caribbean be undertaken,” Kissinger wrote. “The study should include recommendations or options…to advance or protect U.S. interests.”32
Kissinger’s realpolitik approach to foreign policy sometimes steered him into direct negotiations with Cuba. The first of such negotiations sought to develop an anti-hijacking agreement between the two countries. In December of 1968, before Nixon was even sworn in as President, soon-to-be Secretary of State William Rogers arranged for a note to be passed to the Cubans via the Swiss government. As he explained to the President early the next year, the note proposed a reciprocal arrangement for returning hijackers of commercial aircraft to the country of aircraft registry. However, the Cubans stalled, responding that, “it was not possible ‘under present circumstances’ to undertake bilateral commitments to return hijackers.”33
On September 19, 1969, Havana announced a new anti-hijacking law that provided for the prosecution or extradition of persons hijacking aircraft or ships, as well as people otherwise violating immigration regulations. However, extradition of offenders would only take place if a reciprocal bilateral treaty had been signed with the country seeking extradition. A memo sent to Kissinger a few days later documents that the White House viewed the new law as a “significant new development,” despite the fact that it was “heavily larded with anti-US propaganda.” As a member of the NSC mused, the move by Cuba could be symbolic, “not only with respect to the hijacking situation but perhaps in terms of relations with us as well.”34
By October 31, Rogers formally requested permission from Nixon to send a dispatch to the Government of Cuba stating that, “the United States is prepared on a basis of reciprocity to return hijackers of Cuban ships and aircraft except in the case of U.S. nationals or when we determine to grant a hijacker political asylum.” He also went on to make clear that such an agreement was not a step towards normalizing relations with Cuba and, “would not alter the status of our relations with the Castro Government.”35 Two weeks later, at Kissinger’s request, Nixon approved the Secretary of State’s request, and the dispatch was sent to Cuba via the Swiss.36
Over the next year, Cuba and the White House exchanged several notes through the Swiss embassy in Havana, but they disagreed on what bilateral talks should cover and the process stagnated.37 Disagreements centered on who the expropriation accords in the proposed hijacking agreement would apply to and what exceptions would be permitted.38 Since no real progress could be reported, Nixon put a stop to the discussion. However, hijackings continued to get worse, and two years later, Cuba jump-started the stalled negotiations with yet another note proposing bilateral talks. Finally, on November 16, 1972, Rogers instructed the Swiss ambassador in Havana to read the following message to Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa:
The United States Government…is prepared to negotiate an arrangement regarding hijacking and other serious crimes which may be committed in the future…It is prepared to consider favorably any arrangements and location for such talks that would expedite agreement and awaits the government of Cuba’s views.39
Once the United States made a clear commitment to discuss the issue and removed any preconditions, the Cubans responded swiftly, informing the Swiss embassy that talks could begin within a week.40 The Swiss, it was decided, would represent the U.S. government. After less than three months of negotiations and a few compromises on minor issues, the U.S. and Cuba established a bilateral reciprocal agreement on February 12, 1973 that confirmed anyone commiting a hijacking offense in the U.S. or Cuba would either be extradited or prosecuted where they were arrested. Exceptions were allowed for individuals seeking political asylum, but only if their life was in danger in their country of origin.
Also of crucial importance, the agreement stated that each country would try and severely punish any person, “who promotes, or prepares, or directs, or forms part of an expedition from its territory or any other place [that] carries out acts of violence or depredation against aircraft or vessels of any kind or registration coming from or going to the territory of the other party.” This point in particular would be a crucial bone of contention in years to come because of exile attacks against Cuban interests. The agreement was valid for five years, at which point it could be renewed, and could be cancelled by either party with six months notice. 41
By mid-1973, Nixon was already embroiled in the Watergate scandal, and negotiations with Cuba were far down on his list of priorities. However, several members of Congress, including recently defeated presidential candidate Senator George McGovern, began to advocate forcefully for a new relationship with Cuba. In March and April, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held hearings to reexamine U.S. policy toward Cuba. In his opening statement, committee chairman Senator Gale McGee made direct reference to progressive steps towards détente with Russia and China. “If the President can go to Peking and Moscow,” he asked, “why can he not go to Havana?”42
In response to the successful hijacking agreement or pressure from the Senate, Kissinger, now Secretary of State, cautiously decided to investigate the possibility of détente with Cuba. In June of 1974, he validated Senators Jacob Javits and Clairborne Pell for travel to Cuba.43 After spending three days there in September 1974 and meeting with the government’s top leadership, the Senators reported back to the Committee on Foreign Relations that:
—The Castro Government interpreted our trip as an opening—a positive step on the long road back to normalization of relations;
—the Cuban leaders with whom we spoke wished to leave with us the strong impression that their Government has decided to work toward normalized relations;44
Soon after the Senators departed, the Cuban government opted to release four American prisoners as “a gesture of goodwill towards the two Senators, but not towards the government of the United States.”45 Publicly, that statement sounds harsh, but the Cubans perceived Javits and Pell’s visit as a more than just the first step toward normalization of relations with the United States. Unbeknownst to almost anyone, including many in the Nixon administration and possibly Nixon himself, Kissinger sent a hand written note to Fidel Castro in June 1974 via Frank Mankiewicz, a journalist and former director for the Peace Corps in Latin America. In the note, Kissinger said he was eager to begin direct bilateral negotiations, but they would have to be done secretly through middlemen. In many ways, the use of secret notes and a journalist intermediary parallels Kennedy’s use of Lisa Howard in the 1960s. In this case, Mankiewicz served as Kissinger’s chief mode of communication with Castro for the next six months, carrying messages to the Cuban Prime Minister in October 1974 and January 1975. 46
The first secret meeting between the two countries took place on January 11, 1975 at La Guardia Airport in New York. Representing the U.S. were Mankiewicz and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eaglebuger. Nestor García, first secretary at the Cuban UN mission, and Ramón Sánchez-Parodi, a high-ranking official in the America’s department of the Cuban Communist Party, represented the Cubans. An aide-mémoire that Eagleburger presented to the Cubans stated explicitly that the two sides were meeting to discuss options for “a more normal relationship between our two countries.”47 A memo drafted by William Rogers and presented to the Cubans by Eagleburger in the airport that day enumerated Kissinger’s approach to the secret détente effort with Cuba:
The ideological differences between us are wide. But the fact that such talks will not bridge the ideological differences does n not mean that they cannot be useful in addressing concrete issues which it is in the interest of both countries to resolve. The United States is able and willing to make progress on such issues even with socialist nations with whom we are in fundamental ideological disagreement, as the recent progress in our relations with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China has shown.48
At that meeting, both sides agreed that many of the issues dividing the countries would take time to resolve, but decided that both Cuba and the United States should, “identify and define the issues which may be discussed, and in what order we might discuss them.” According to Eagleburger, Sánchez-Parodi told him that, in his personal opinion, the U.S. needed to lift the trade embargo before other talks could move forward. A memorandum from Rogers to Kissinger documents that U.S. interests in the negotiations included, amongst other things: compensation for the property the Cuban government expropriated form U.S. firms, the release of American citizens in jail, improvement on human rights, and the cessation of Cuba’s “mischievous involvement” in support of “terrorist insurgents” in Latin America and other parts of the world. In an interview with reporters several months beforehand, Castro had expressed his willingness to talk with Kissinger, but only if the embargo were to be lifted.49 Still, no preconditions were placed on the negotiations that took place in Laguardia.50 After the meeting was conducted, Kissinger sent another message to Castro via Mankiewicz. “The United States is taking these steps as an expression of its interest in exploring the normalization of relations,” Kissinger wrote to the Cuban head-of-state. “A further meeting of officials is now appropriate.”51 In an interview conducted around the same time, Castro told reporters he was confident the embargo would eventually be lifted, benefiting the United States.52 In March 1975, in a major policy speech in Houston, Kissinger publicly recognized the steps that had been made toward détente. “We see no virtue in perpetual antagonism between the United States and Cuba,” he stated. “We are prepared to move in a new direction if Cuba will.”53
Senator McGovern gave another boost toward improved relations between the long divorced neighboring states when he visited Cuba in early May of the same year. During his trip McGovern spent extensive amounts of time with Fidel Castro, getting to know him personally and discussing a wide range of issues regarding U.S.–Cuban relations. “Though my stay in Havana was brief, I believe it made a significant contribution to the normalization process,” McGovern declared in his report back to the Senate. “Whatever may be the case in the past, Cuba now places first priority on internal development and external détente.” In the same report, the former democratic presidential candidate made his policy position on the embargo unambiguous:
At the earliest possible moment, I believe the United States should end its embargo against Cuba, and explicitly acknowledge and interest in establishing normal diplomatic relations with the government of Prime Minister Fidel Castro…Boycotting Cuba will not resolve the historic debate between Karl Marx and John Locke any more than did ignoring China for 25 years. We have social systems which are different, but so be it; our ideologies are at odds, but that does not preclude trade and dialogue.54
According to McGovern’s description, Castro was friendly and accessible during the senator’s brief stay in Cuba. Fidel also offered a new commitment to compromise with the U.S. at a press conference toward the end of the senator’s trip, stating that Cuba was prepared to negotiate with the U.S. if the Ford administration would ease even a small part of the embargo, like the prohibition on food and medicine exports. “We would prefer the lifting of the entire embargo,” he told U.S. news reporters, “but we are talking about the need for a gesture.”55
The same day that McGovern left Cuba, Mexican Foreign Minister Emilio Rabasa announced he would set in motion actions to try to lift the multilateral trade sanctions against Cuba that had been in place through the OAS since 1964.56 In response, the key players in the Kissinger State Department met on June 9, 1975 to discuss tactics for U.S. policy towards Cuba in light of the probability that the OAS would vote to lift its multilateral embargo in the near future. At that meeting, William Rogers and Lawrence Eagleburger lobbied the Secretary of State to allow them contact the Cubans again, this time to setup a secret meeting before the upcoming meeting of the OAS in San José, Costa Rica in late July. In response, Kissinger gave them his permission to contact the Cubans. But he also gave them very specific instructions about how they should conduct their diplomatic efforts. “It is better to deal straight with Castro. Behave chivalrously; do it like a big guy, not like a shyster,” Kissinger told his negotiators. “Let him know: we are moving in a new direction; we’d like to synchronize; New York City under the UN mantle would be the place; steps will be unilateral; reciprocity is necessary.”57
At the same meeting, Kissinger also put strict limitations on diplomacy with Cuba. Towards the start of the meeting, Rogers brought up the issue of compensation for U.S. property that had been nationalized by the Cuban government, asking if it would be possible “to agree on terms to negotiate compensation and establish diplomatic relations, leaving settlement on compensation until later.” In response, Kissinger promptly replied, “No. Absolutely not. This is out of the question. It is not my style of work.”58 Later in the same conversation, Kissinger explained his tactics for dealing with congressional pressure to end the embargo.
Rogers: Our position is being continually chiseled away by Congress.
Kissinger: Don’t let them. This should be easy.
Rogers: A Kennedy bill to abolish all the sanctions could pass.
Kissinger: That would be a great one to veto.59
From Kissinger’s point of view, lifting unilateral sanctions without getting something in exchange would be against U.S. self-interest, because it would be giving up one of the United States’ key bargaining chips for free. At one point, Rogers contrasted diplomatic efforts with Cuba to the successful normalization process Kissinger had guided with China. Never slow to respond, the Secretary of State explained why his diplomatic approach to Cuba was different than his efforts at détente with the major socialist powers:
—Cuba is not important.
—I will not cater to the propensity of the Democrats to make unilateral concessions;
—Cuba can do nothing for us except to embarrass us in Latin America…60
These three points lucidly illustrate Henry Kissinger’s basic thought process regarding policy toward Cuba. First, improving relations with the island offers little benefit to U.S. self-interest. So why bother? Second, getting bullied by political opponents is not an option. Third, direct relations with Cuba should be avoided or pursued with the utmost secrecy in a limited context. Despite these drawbacks, Kissinger approved Rogers and Eagleburger’s request to send a note to the Cubans, and which they passed to Néstor García at a 9 a.m. meeting in the Washington National Airport on June 21, 1975. Their next round of talks were scheduled for July 9 in the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan because, “it could be entered without going past the desk.” 61
During those secret negotiations, Eagleburger, Rogers, Sánchez-Parodi and García discussed with guarded optimism “a series of ideas for a reciprocal, across-the-board improvement of relations.”62 For their part, the U.S. would vote in favor of lifting multilateral OAS sanctions against Cuba. In turn, it was suggested that the Cubans might allow family visits from Cuban-Americans.63 As James Blight and Peter Kornbluh write, “Hostility toward Cuba was not a ‘permanent and organic element’ of US foreign Policy, Rogers and Eagleburger said; if the Castro government manifested ‘respect and mutual regard for other nations’—i.e., stopped supporting leftist insurgencies in Latin America—and took steps on human rights and other outstanding issues, diplomatic ties could be normalized.”64 The Cubans complained that the meeting was too short and was dominated by U.S. proposals, but both sides agreed to meet again in a few weeks.65
On July 29, 1975, the OAS voted by 16 to 3 to lift multilateral sanctions on trade and consular relations with Cuba. That meant that each OAS member state was “free to normalize or carry on relations with the Republic of Cuba at the level and in the form that each state deems fit.”66 On August 9, the Cuban government returned $2 million in ransom money that had been taken from the U.S. to Cuba in a hijacked plane. John Sparkman, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the move “solid evidence that the Cuban government is genuinely interested in pursuing a policy of improved relations with the United States.”67 Around the same time, the State Department publicly announced that it was interested in entering “serious discussion” with Cuba about a negotiated rapprochement.68
Soon after Castro returned the $2 million in hijacked cash, Kissinger sent a memo to President Ford to advocate for a limited relaxation of the United States’ own sanctions against Cuba. In light of the removal of multilateral restrictions against Cuba by OAS member states, “the political and legal justification for our sanctions against those countries deciding to trade with Cuba has been removed” Kissinger told the President.69 He proposed that the United States lift its restrictions on third countries trading with Cuba by granting licenses for many U.S. subsidiaries abroad to trade with Cuba; lifting the ban on foreign assistance to countries that do business with the island; and allowing ships that have been to Cuban ports to refuel in U.S. harbors. In Kissinger’s own words, “these steps will be recognized by Castro and will put the onus on him to take the next conciliatory gestures towards us. Our purely bilateral sanctions would be left intact.” 70 On the back of the memorandum, Ford initialed his approval, and a National Security Memorandum three weeks later confirmed Kissinger’s recommendations as official (albeit confidential) policy.71
All of these events represented significant progress towards détente with Cuba. At the time, many people—including Fidel Castro, officials in the State Department and several U.S. Senators—were hopeful that the gradually improving relationship between the countries would lead to normalized relations and an end to the bilateral embargo against Cuba put into place by JFK in 1962. Several factors had a profound impact on the impetus towards a more symbiotic U.S.–Cuban relationship, including the overall climate of détente, the vote to lift the OAS‘s multilateral sanctions against Cuba, and the efforts by Castro and Congress to forge a more constructive rapport. However, relations between the two countries returned to their pattern of hostility within a few short months. What happened?
In this case, the conflict was centered primarily on a foreign policy clash almost halfway across the world. For over a decade, Angola head been enmeshed in a war of independence against Portugal, which was holding on to its African colonies by a thread through brutal repression. The independence movement was split into three camps which often clashed violently with one another. In early 1975, the warring factions signed a treaty with each other and Portugal, and a date for official independence was set for the end of the year.
At an NSC meeting in June 1975, Kissinger expressed concern that the Soviet Union was investing weapons and equipment in the MPLA, an Angolan faction with communist roots headed by poet and freedom fighter Augustino Neto. At that same meeting, President Ford told the council, “It seems to me that doing nothing is unacceptable. As for diplomatic efforts, it is naïve to think that’s going to happen.” For his part, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger painted the African country as the new central front in the Cold War, suggesting that, “we might wish to encourage the disintegration of Angola.”72
On August 9, 1975, South African forces invaded Angola with quiet encouragement from the U.S. and clandestine support from the CIA.73 As a result, the MPLA requested Cuban assistance, and Cuban Major Raúl Diaz Arguelles wrote a memo to Raúl Castro from Angola on August 11 in which he reported giving $100,000 to the MPLA and advised Castro that, “we should help them directly or indirectly to resolve this situation.”74 The very next day, Rogers told Kissinger that Cuban involvement in Angola was “obscene,” and recommended that the U.S. denounce it publicly. “I think the Cubans ought to be called on it,” he told the Secretary of State. “I can’t see any reason not to. It is an extraordinary violation of international law.”75
By December 1975, Cuba had a large deployment of combat troops in Angola armed with heavy Soviet weapons. In response, President Ford announced publicly that any moves toward détente with Cuba were off. “There are between 4,000 and 6,000 Cuban combat military personnel in Angola,” Ford told reporters at a press conference on December 20. “The action of the Cuban Government to involve itself in a massive military way in Angola with combat troops ends, as far as I am concerned, any efforts at all to have friendlier relations with the government of Cuba.”76 Ford claimed Cuba was illegally intervening in Angola, however, in a book about the U.S., Cuba, and Africa, Piero Gleijeses writes that, “Castro decided to send combat troops to Angola on November 4, 1975, in response to the South African invasion of that country, rather than vice versa as the Ford administration persistently claimed.”77 A thorough analysis of declassified documents seems to support Gleijeses’ position, despite the fact that Kissinger claims otherwise in his memoirs.
By April 1976, relations between the U.S. and Cuba had devolved into the familiar arrangement of distrust accompanied by a lack of communication and the rhetoric of accusation. In his speech at the annual celebration of the Cuban victory at Playa Girón (aka the Bay of Pigs), Castro said, “Angola constitutes an African Girón for the Yankee imperialists.” He went on to make his case against U.S. involvement in the west African country, declaring that the United States had invested tens of millions of dollars in arms shipments and instigated invasions into Angola from Zaire and South Africa before a single Cuban combat instructor arrived to the country.78 In that speech, Castro went on to antagonize the U.S. President and his Secretary of State by name. “Ford and Kissinger lie to the United States people, and especially to the black population of the country, when they hide the fact that fascist and racist troops from South Africa criminally invaded Angolan territory well before Cuba sent any regular unit of soldiers there,” Castro asserted with vehemence. “Ford and Kissinger lie to the American people and to world opinion when they try to hold the Soviet Union responsible for Cuban solidarity actions in Angola.”79
To make matters worse, the 1970s were years of intense paramilitary attacks against Cuba by exiles living in the United States. The situation came to a head on October 6, 1976, when a bomb exploded on a Cubana Airlines plane that was flying to Havana from Barbados. All 73 passengers on the plane were killed, including the Cuban National Fencing Team, who had just won gold medals at the Central American and Caribbean Fencing Championships. A week later, two Cuban exiles with ties to the CIA, Orlando Bosch and Luís Posada Carriles, as well as two Venezuelans, Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo Losano, were arrested in Venezuela in association with the terrorist bombing.80 Documents released in 1997 show that the CIA had intelligence from as early as June 1976 of Bosch and Carriles’ plans to blow up a Cubana airliner, yet made no efforts to stop them.81
In response to the tragedy, Castro gave a major speech in Havana on October 15, 1976, in which he detailed a long list of violent attacks against Cuba during that year.” In the end of his speech, Castro announced that such terrorist activity against Cuba made it impossible to maintain the anti-hijacking treaty that had been negotiated during Nixon’s first term as President:
The agreement signed between the governments of the United Stated and Cuba on February 15, 1973, cannot survive this brutal crime. The Cuban government finds it necessary to cancel it and will there so inform the United States government this afternoon…We will not again sign any such agreement with the United States until the terrorist campaign unleashed against Cuba is definitively terminated, effective guarantees are made to our people and there is a final end to United States acts of hostility and aggression against Cuba. There can be no collaboration of any kind between an aggressor country and a country under attack. 82
By the end of Ford’s term in office, then, relations with Cuba had come full-swing. Through a painstaking process of secret notes, negotiations and friendly gestures, both countries had made advances towards détente. They had even taken tangible steps toward improving relations, like the lifting of third country sanctions against Cuba and the release of hijacked money and political prisoners. But nearly all their efforts had deteriorated or been reversed by late 1976, and Jimmy Carter inherited a hostile relationship with Cuba when he took office the next year.
Why did the process of rapprochement fall apart so rapidly? A glance back at the four principle reasons for failed U.S.–Cuban negotiations that I discussed at the start of this paper is informative. First, both sides often indicated a degree of inflexibility with regard to the diplomatic process. Kissinger made clear before the OAS lifted sanctions against Cuba that he would not consider normalizing relations as a step to negotiating compensation for U.S. firms that lost property to nationalization. He also declared that an effort by Congress to lift the embargo would be vetoed. At times, Castro seemed ready to negotiate a compromise to resolve the countries conflicts, but the White House remained hesitant.
Second, electoral concerns almost surely affected the diplomacy process by putting pressure on Nixon and Ford to keep direct negotiations strictly secret. According to Sánchez-Parodi, Ford was forced to take a hard-line anti-Castro stance because of his contest with Ronald Reagan in the 1976 Florida primary. “The main reason [for failed diplomacy with Ford], we have always believed, was the fear that if secret talks were revealed during the election campaign, Ford would have been severely damaged,” the Cuban negotiator said.83
Third, Cuba’s interventionist foreign policy in Africa clashed with U.S. foreign policy interests and amplified fears of a Soviet attempt to shift the global balance of power. Granted, several documents appear to show that the U.S. supported multiple invasions of Angola before Cuban forces arrived. Moreover, Castro sent troops at the request of Agostinho Neto, which he argued was not an intervention but a responsible and legal effort to support a sovereign government under threat from external aggression. Regardless of its motivation, Cuba’s deployment of Combat troops in Angola surely made negotiations with the U.S. more difficult, if not impossible. As usual, anti-American rhetoric employed by Castro in many of his public speeches did not help smooth the process during moments of strain. As a result, most Cuban proposals for improving relations were viewed as half-hearted and deceitful, and were therefore ultimately dismissed or rejected.
Finally, motions toward conciliation made by the Nixon and Ford administrations were ultimately accompanied by contradictory policies that were either openly hostile or interpreted as such. While demanding a noninterventionist foreign policy from Cuba, Ford promoted aggression against Angola through some of the United States most unsavory allies. Moreover, the U.S. negotiated an anti-hijacking agreement with Cuba that explicitly encompassed any acts of violence against vessels of any type going to or from the island, but the Nixon/Ford administrations did very little to control Cuban exile terrorist groups perpetrating acts of violence against the Cuba. These contradictions between diplomatic overtures and aggressive hard-line tactics generally made rapprochement unrealistic and contributed greatly to successfully improve U.S.–Cuban relations.
The four factors described above have shown themselves to be recurrent in the administrations that followed Kissinger’s tenure at the State Department. In concluding, I contend that these factors—and the ability to evolve beyond them—will be critical in shaping the course of direct negotiations and U.S.–Cuban relations during the Presidency of Barack Obama.
Conclusion
As I have argued, direct negotiations between the United States and Cuba from JFK to Ford never led to a significant long-term improvement in bilateral relations for four reasons: inflexible and unreasonable diplomatic demands, domestic political pressure towards hard-line tactics, interventionist foreign policy, and contradictory demands and actions during the negotiating process. If Barack Obama hopes to significantly improve U.S.–Cuban relations through diplomacy, he will have to avoid the pitfalls of the past. Certainly, the contemporary world stage is drastically different than the situation Kennedy and Kissinger confronted. But is Obama’s proposed relationship with Cuba substantively dissimilar from that of his Cold War predecessors? Documents from the Obama presidential campaign offers some clues.
A publication on foreign policy called the “Obama-Biden Plan,” states that Obama will start a “new chapter of engagement” throughout the western hemisphere. “In the case of Cuba,” the plan states, “he will also send an important message: if a post-Fidel government takes significant steps toward democracy, beginning with freedom for all political prisoners, the U.S. is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo that has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades.”84
As a tangible move towards détente, his campaign stated that upon taking office, “Obama will grant Cuban-Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island.” The same document makes reference to a speech Obama gave on May 23, 2008 about his proposed policy toward Latin America, quoting him as saying:
My policy will be guided by the simply principle that what’s good for the people of the America’s is good for the United States. That means measuring success not just through agreements among governments, but also through the hopes of the child in the favelas of Rio, the security for the policeman in Mexico City, and the shrinking of distance between Miami and Havana. 85
All of these statements by the Obama campaign seem to indicate an opening in U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba. Indeed, relations under George W. Bush have been characterized by a total refusal to negotiate and an active policy of promoting regime change.86 However, some of the familiar themes that scuttled diplomatic efforts in the past are evident in Obama’s proposals his foreign policy towards Cuba. In fact, looking at the actual speech that Obama’s campaign materials quote above reveals an immediate contradiction in his statements on Cuba. Instead of closing his sentence with a calling for a closer relationship between Florida and Cuba, as he was quoted by his own campaign, Obama actually said he will measure the success of his foreign policy through, “the answered cries of political prisoners heard from jails in Havana.”87 Already, then, we can see that Obama is capable of sending contradictory messages to Cuba in a similar fashion to JFK and Kissinger.
It is not a coincidence that Obama was speaking at the annual Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) Cuban Independence Day luncheon in Miami. CANF has long been known as one of the most hard-line and hard-hitting Cuban émigré political organizations. Jorge Más Canosa, the organizations deceased founder and long-time leader, is known to have funded terrorist actions by the same that bombed the Cubana Airlines plane in 1976.88 Thus, Obama’s contradiction in terms seems to be motivated by electoral concerns that exert pressure for continued hard-line policies against the Cuban government. Many argue that anti-Castro sentiment is not as prominent in Miami as it was thirty years ago. Still, Obama’s odds of significantly improving relations with Cuba are slim if he is strongly swayed by Cuban-American lobbyist groups like CANF.
A fact sheet on Obama’s proposals for Latin American policy summarizes his three key goals in the region: to increase democracy and political freedom; to address common threats like drug trafficking, transnational gangs and terrorism; and to combat poverty, hunger, health problems and global warming.89 Turning specifically to Cuba, the campaign announces its goal is to “advance the cause of freedom and democracy in Cuba.” While Obama’s proposal calls for “a stable and peaceful transition,” it makes clear where its priorities lie, declaring that, “a democratic opening in Cuba is, and should be, the foremost objective of our policy.”90
No doubt, Obama is a far cry from George W. Bush, but his use of easily pliable terms like “freedom” and “democracy” is a continuation of the rhetoric Bush employed to justify his doctrine of preemptive intervention in defense U.S. interests. Obama’s insistence on both terms also indicates his intention to promote, and perhaps demand, fundamental changes to Cuba’s internal political affairs as necessary conditions for improving diplomatic relations with the United States. In his speech in Miami, the Senator from Illinois made these themes even more prominent in his basic approach to U.S.–Cuban relations. “My policy toward Cuba will be guided by one word: Libertad,” he told his audience. “And the road to freedom for all Cubans must begin with justice for Cuba’s political prisoners, the rights of free speech, a free press and freedom of assembly; and it must lead to elections that are free and fair.”91
Since Cuba has historically always rejected similar proposals from the U.S., this does not bode well for attempts to reach a meaningful rapprochement. Moreover, direct elections for all levels of parliament have been held in Cuba since the early 1990s, so it might be interpreted that Obama’s call for free and fair elections is tantamount to demanding Cuba give up its one party system. As evidenced in this essay, the Cuban government does not find such a demand to be acceptable under any circumstances.
Moreover, looking at Barack Obama’s laundry list of steps on the “road to freedom” gives one the impression that his stated willingness to negotiate without conditions may be ephemeral beyond the realm of semantics. At one point in his speech, he states explicitly that, “I will maintain the embargo,” since it provides the United States with leverage to demand changes in Cuba in exchange for improved relations.92 In historical context, it is clear that Barack Obama’s policy proposals toward Cuba reproduce many of the factors that led to failed negotiations under JFK and later Nixon and Ford.
Still there are number of trends that could lead to a different outcome than previous diplomatic efforts. For one, the Cold War is definitively over and Cuba no longer has a strong relationship with a threatening world super power. It does have healthy relations with China and a strong alliance with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, but neither of these relationships has the implications of Cuba’s connection with the Soviet Union prior to 1990. Furthermore, Cuba’s economic situation since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and its rejection of a militant internationalist foreign policy make the island drastically less threatening than thirty years ago. Finally, Congress is expected to pass legislation in 2009 that will open travel to Cuba to U.S. citizens, and such measures are being supported by incoming White House Chief Rahm Emanuel.93
If Obama opts to negotiate directly with the Cuban government to improve relations, he is in a unique position to do so. While his remarks before CANF during the presidential campaign are reminiscent of failed diplomatic efforts toward Cuba in the previous years, it remains to be seen what direction President Obama will take with regard to Cuba. However, one thing is certain: if Obama does decide to work towards normalizing relations with Cuba, he will only succeed if he learns from the past and avoids the patterns of enmity that incapacitated steps towards rapprochement between the United States and Cuba during the Cold War.
Notes:
[1] Sean Penn, “Mountain of Snakes Part II,” The Huffington Post, Nov. 30, 2008. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-penn/mountain-of-snakes-part-i_b_147239.html
[2] Dwight Eisenhower, “Statement by the President on Terminating Diplomatic Relations with Cuba.” January, 3, 1961. The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California (hosted), Gerhard Peters (database). Available from World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=12048.
[3] Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History, Australia: Ocean Press, 1997, pp. 24.
[4] “Records of a White House Meeting on January, 19, 1961, Between President Dwight D. Eisenhower, President-elect John F. Kennedy, and Their Chief Advisers.” The Kennedys and Cuba: The Declassified Documentary History, Mark J. White (Ed.), Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999, pp. 15.
[5] John F. Kennedy, “The President’s News Conference,” January 25, 1961. The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California (hosted), Gerhard Peters (database). Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8533.
[6] “Memorandum from Assistant Special Counsel Richard N. Goodwin to President Kennedy,” August 22, 1961. The Kennedys and Cuba: The Declassified Documentary History, Mark J. White (Ed.), Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999, pp. 63.
[7] “Memorandum from Assistant Special Council Goodwin to President Kennedy,” September 1, 1961. The Kennedys and Cuba: The Declassified Documentary History, Mark J. White (Ed.), Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999, pp. 65.
[8]John F. Kenney, “Proclamation 3447 – Embargo on All Trade with Cuba,” February 3, 1962. The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California (hosted), Gerhard Peters (database). http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=58824.
[9] Peter Kornbluh, “JFK & Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation,” Cigar Aficionado, September/October 1999. http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Archives/CA_Show_Article/0,2322,320,00.html.
[10] Gordon Chase, “Mr. Donovan’s Trip to Cuba,” White House Memorandum for the Record, Top Secret, March 4, 1963. Kennedy & Castro: The Secret History. The National Security Archive. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm.
[11] Gordon Chase, “Cuba—Policy,” White House memorandum, Top Secret, April 11, 1963. Kennedy & Castro: The Secret History. The National Security Archive. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm.
[12] Richard Helms, “Interview of U.S. Newswoman with Fidel Castro Indicating Possible Interest in Rapprochement with the United States,” CIA briefing paper, Secret, May 1, 1963. Kennedy & Castro: The Secret History. The National Security Archive. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm.
[13]William Attwood, “Chronology of events leading up to Castro’s invitation to receive a U.S. official for talks in Cuba,” U.S. UN Mission memorandum, Secret, November 8, 1963. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Oval Office audio tape, November 5, 1963. Kennedy & Castro: The Secret History. The National Security Archive. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm.
[16] William Attwood, “Chronology of events leading up to Castro’s invitation to receive a U.S. official for talks in Cuba,” U.S. UN Mission memorandum, Secret, November 22, 1963. Kennedy & Castro: The Secret History. The National Security Archive. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm.
[17] Jean Daniel, “When Castro Heard the News,” The New Republic, December 7, 1963, pp. 7-9.
[18] Jean Daniel, “Unofficial Envoy: An Historic Report from Two Capitols,” The New Republic, December 14, 1963, pp. 15-20.
[19] Gordon Chase, “Cuba—Item of Presidential Interest,” White House memorandum, Top Secret, November 25, 1963. Kennedy & Castro: The Secret History. The National Security Archive. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm.
[20] Message from Fidel Castro given to Lyndon Johnson, “Verbal Message given to Miss Lisa Howard of ABC News on February 12, 1964, in Havana, Cuba.” Kennedy & Castro: The Secret History. The National Security Archive. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm.
[21] Gordon Chase, “Adlai Stevenson and Lisa Howard,” White House memorandum, Top Secret, July 7, 1964. Kennedy & Castro: The Secret History. The National Security Archive. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB103/index.htm.
[22] “Transcript of Proceedings between Cuban Officials and JFK Historians, Tape 2 of 8,” Nassau Beach Hotel, December 7, 1995. Available from the World Wide Web: http://cuban-exile.com/doc_026-050/doc0027-2.html.
[23] Robert F. Kennedy, “Re: Travel to Cuba,” Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General, Memorandum for Honorable Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, December 12, 1963. Robert F. Kennedy Urged Lifting the Travel Ban to Cuba in ’63. The National Security Archive. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB158/index.htm.
[24] Abba Schwartz and Abram Chayes, “Travel Regulations,” State Department Memorandum for the Acting Secretary, December 13, 1963. Robert F. Kennedy Urged Lifting the Travel Ban to Cuba in ’63. The National Security Archive. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB158/index.htm.
[25] Gordon Chase, “Travel Controls—Cuba,” National Security Council Memorandum for Mr. Bundy, December 18, 1963. Robert F. Kennedy Urged Lifting the Travel Ban to Cuba in ’63. The National Security Archive. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB158/index.htm.
[26] McGeorge Bundy, “Student Travel to Cuba,” National Security Council Memorandum for the President, May 21, 1964. Robert F. Kennedy Urged Lifting the Travel Ban to Cuba in ’63. The National Security Archive. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB158/index.htm.
[27] Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History, Australia: Ocean Press, 1997, pp. 74.
[28] Lyndon B. Johnson, “Statement by the President Upon Signing Bill Relating to Claims of U.S. Nationals Against the Government of Cuba,” October 17, 1964. The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California (hosted), Gerhard Peters (database). http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=26625.
[29] Philip Brenner, From Confrontation to Negotiation: U.S. Relations with Cuba, Boulder: Westview Press, 1988, pp. 17.
[30] Henry Kissinger, “United States Policy Toward Cuba,” National Security Study Memorandum 32, National Security Council, March 21, 1969.
[31] Jeanne W. Davis, “Minutes of Review Group Meeting on Cuba, Thursday, September 23,” Nation Security Council Memorandum for Mr. Kissinger, October 4, 1969.
[32] Henry Kissinger, “Review of U.S. Policy in the Caribbean Area,” National Security Study Memorandum 117, National Security Council, February 16, 1971.
[33] William Rogers, “Hijacking of Aircraft,” Secretary of State Memorandum for the President, February 6, 1969.
[34] Viron P. Vaky, “Cuba’s New Anti-Hijacking Law—A Significant Development,” White House Memorandum for Dr. Kissinger, September 23, 1969.
[35] William Rogers, “Cuban Hijacking Decree,” Secretary of State Memorandum for the President, October 31, 1969.
[36] Henry Kissinger, “Note to Cuban Government on Hijacking,” White House Memorandum for the President, November 12, 1969. Nixon’s initials and a stamp dated November 13, 1969 are visible on the last page.
[37] See for example, “U.S. Reply to Cuban response to U.S. proposal for anti-hijacking agreement,” Department of State telegram to American Embassy in Bern, sent June 19, 1970.
[38] “Proposed Hijacking Agreement with Cuba,” Department of State telegram to American Embassy in Bern, sent December 28, 1970.
[39] “Message from State Department to Amb. Masnata,” November 16, 1972.
[40] “Translation of Cuban Government Note to Swiss Embassy Havana,” November 19, 1972.
[41] Serban Vallimarescu, “Hijacking Agreement with Cuba,” National Security Council Memorandum for General Snowcroft, February 13, 1973.
[42]Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, “A Reexamination of U.S. Policy Toward Cuba,” Ninety Third Congress, First Session, March 26 and April 18, 1973. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974.
[43] Philip Brenner, From Confrontation to Negotiation: U.S. Relations with Cuba, Boulder: Westview Press, 1988, pp. 18.
[44] Senator Jacob K. Javits and Senator Clairborne Pell, “The United States and Cuba: A Propitious Moment: A Report their Trip to Cuba September 27-30, 1974,” Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Ninety Third Congress, Second Session. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, October 1974, pp. 1.
[45] Ibid, pp. 13.
[46] James Blight and Peter Kornbluh, “Dialogue with Castor: A Hidden History,” The New York Review of Books 41 (16) October 6, 1994.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid.
[49] “Castro: Will Talk with Kissinger if Congress Lifts the Blockade,” Paris AFP, July 3, 1974. Available from the World Wide Web at the Lanic Castro Speech Data Base, http://www1.lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1974/19740703.htm.
[50] James Blight and Peter Kornbluh, “Dialogue with Castor: A Hidden History,” The New York Review of Books 41 (16) October 6, 1994.
[51] Ibid.
[52] “Castro Sees the Blockade Eventually Lifting, Benefiting the U.S.,” Buenos Aires LATIN, January 1, 1975. Available from the World Wide Web at the Lanic Castro Speech Data Base, http://www1.lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1975/19750104.htm.
[53] “Towards Improved United States—Cuba Relations,” Report of a special study mission to Cuba, February 10-15, 1977, House of Representative, Ninety Fifth Congress, First Session, May 23, 1977. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977.
[54] George McGovern, “Cuban Realities: May 1975,” A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Ninety Fourth Congress, First Session, August, 1975. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975.
[55] “Towards Improved United States—Cuba Relations,” Report of a special study mission to Cuba, February 10-15, 1977, House of Representative, Ninety Fifth Congress, First Session, May 23, 1977. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977, pp. 70.
[56] Ibid.
[57] “Cuba Policy: Tactics Before and After San Jose,” Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, Secret/NODIS, June 9, 1975, pp.5-6.
[58] Ibid, pp. 1.
[59] Ibid, pp. 4.
[60] Ibid, pp. 3.
[61] James Blight and Peter Kornbluh, “Dialogue with Castor: A Hidden History,” The New York Review of Books 41 (16) October 6, 1994.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Ibid.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Jane Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History, Australia: Ocean Press, 1997, pp. 118.
[67] James Blight and Peter Kornbluh, “Dialogue with Castor: A Hidden History,” The New York Review of Books 41 (16) October 6, 1994.
[68] Ibid.
[69] Henry Kissinger, “Third Country Sanctions against Cuba,” White House Memorandum for the President, August 19, 1975, pp.1-2.
[70] Henry Kissinger, “Third Country Sanctions against Cuba,” White House Memorandum for the President, August 19, 1975, pp.2-3.
[71] “Termination of U.S. Restrictions on Third Countries Trading with Cuba,” National Security Decision Memorandum 305, September 15, 1975.
[72] “Angola,” National Security Council Meeting Minutes, June, 27, 1975. Document obtained from Gerald Ford Library, NSC Meetings File, Box 2. Conflicting Missions: Secret Documents on History of African Involvement, The National Security Archive. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB67/index2.html.
[73] Wayne Smith, The Closes of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic Account of U.S.–Cuban Relations since 1957, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1987, pp.96.
[74] Raúl Díaz Arguelles, “Informe sobre visita a Angola,” Memorandum to Major Raúl Castro Ruz, August 11, 1975. Document from the Centro de Información de la Defensa de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, CIDFAR. Conflicting Missions: Secret Documents on History of African Involvement, The National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB67/index2.html.
[75] “The Secretary’s 8:00 A.M. Staff Meeting,” Secretary of State, November 5, 1975.
[76] Gerald Ford, “The President’s News Conference,” December 20, 1975. The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California (hosted), Gerhard Peters (database). Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=5448.
[77] Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
[78] Fidel Castro, “Discurso Pronunciado por el Presidente de la República de Cuba, en el Acto Central por el XV Aniversario de la Victoria de Girón y la Proclamación Socialista de Nuestra Revolución, Celebrado en el Teatro ‘Carlos Marx, Años del XX Aniversario del Granma,’” April 19, 1976. Deparamiento de Versiones Taquigráficas del Gobierno Revolucionário. http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1976/esp/f190476e.html.
[79] Ibid.
[80] Franklin, Cuba and the United States: A Chronological History, Australia: Ocean Press, 1997, pp. 128.
[81] “Possible Plans of Cuban Exile Extremists to Blow Up a Cubana Airliner,” CIA Report, June 22, 1976. Luis Posada Carriles: The Declassified Record, The National Security Archive. Availabe from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm.
[82] Fidel Castro, “Speech by the President of the Council of State and Council of Ministers at the Memorial Service for the Victims of the Cubana Airlines Plane Destroyed in Flight on October 6, Given in the Revolution Square, Havana,” October 15, 1976. http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1976/ing/f151076i.html.
[83] James Blight and Peter Kornbluh, “Dialogue with Castor: A Hidden History,” The New York Review of Books 41 (16) October 6, 1994.
[84] “Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s Plan to Secure America and Restore our Standing: The Obama-Biden Plan.” Paid for by Obama for America. http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/foreign_policy/#onlatinamerica.
[85] “Rewriting U.S. Leadership in the Americas.” Paid for by Obama for America. http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/Fact_Sheet_Latin_America_FINAL_060608_IH.pdf.
[86] For more on the Bush administration’s plan to promote a change of government in Cuba, see: “Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba,” Reports to the President, May 2004 and July 2006. http://www.cafc.gov.
[87] Barack Obama, “Renewing U.S. Leadership in the Americas,” remarks given at the annual Cuban American National Foundation Cuban Independence Day Luncheon, May 23, 2008. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.barackobama.com/2008/05/23/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_68.php.
[88] "Luis Posada Carriles," FBI, July 7, 1965 and "Cuban Representation in Exile (RECE)," FBI, July 13, 1965. Luis Posada Carriles: The Declassified Record, The National Security Archive. Availabe from the World Wide Web: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/index.htm.
[89] Rewriting U.S. Leadership in the Americas.” Paid for by Obama for America. http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/Fact_Sheet_Latin_America_FINAL_060608_IH.pdf.
[90] Ibid.
[91] Barack Obama, “Renewing U.S. Leadership in the Americas,” remarks given at the annual Cuban American National Foundation Cuban Independence Day Luncheon, May 23, 2008. Available from the World Wide Web: http://www.barackobama.com/2008/05/23/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_68.php.
[92] Ibid.
[93] Tim Ashby, “Cuba/US: Relations Under Obama,” World Association of International Studies, Stanford University, CA – PAX et LUX, December 3, 2008. http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/?p=23953.
