Dagger in The Heart

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DAGGER
IN
:
( THE HEART
l .1
American Policy Failures

r in Cuba
\
I
\\
BY
MARIO LAZO
FUNK & WAGNALLS
A Division of Reader's Digest Books, Inc.
Born, raised, and educated in the United States, Mario

Lazo went to Cuba after receiving hjs law degree from
Cornell and serving as a Captain in the U.S. Ariny in
World War I. He took a law degree from the University of
Havana and later founded and headed one of Latin
America's most prestigious law firms. Through the years
his firm represented the U.S. Government, major corpora
tions, and a distinguished Cuban clientele.
After the fall of Batista, Dr. Lazo valiantly continued
his law practice in Havana. Imprisoned and threatened
with execution by the Castro regime, his wife, Carmen,
saved his life and helped him escape to the United States.
For the next seven years Dr. Lazo set himself the task of
writing what even The New Republic has called "the best
account to date of Castro's victory," bringing to the under
taking the investigative skills of a great lawyer, and a repu
tation that permitted him to reach into the highest official
circles in Washington. _
***
"Dagger in the Heart had to be written and no one was
better qualified to write it."-HARRY F. GUGGENHEIM,
former Ambassador to Cuba
"Wherever I had first-hand knowledge in my position as
U.S. Ambassador in Cuba during that period ... the facts
are accurate."-EARL E. T. SMITH, former Ambassador to
Cuba during Castro's rise to power
~'The Lazo book is superb.... The depth of the research

is astonishing."-W. L. WHITE, Emporia Gazette
"By far the most authoritative book which has been

written about Cuba...."-ELLIS O. BRIGGS, former U.S.
Ambassador to seven countries
Copyright © 1968 by Mario Lazo
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-31632
This paperbound edition published 1970 by
Funk & Wagnalls,
A Division of Reader's Digest Books, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the Cuban people,
in the firm conviction that they will soon again
be free
"The Castro regime is a thorn in the flesh;
but it is not a dagger in the heart."
--SENATOR J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT,

in Memorandum to President Kennedy,
March 30, 1961
Contents
A Foreword 9
I Darkness Descends 19
II Fragments of the Past 29
III Reprieve and Escape 34
IV The Brightest Pages 46
V The Rise of Batista 58
VI Toward Democracy 73
VII Facts and Fallacies 94
VIII Castro's Early Days 109
IX The Build-Up 120
X Cuba at the Crossroads 135
XI American Intervention 156
XII The First Castro Year 187
XIII Castro's Second Year 217
XIV The Mystery of Castro's Communism 240
XV The Invasion as Planned 259
XVI The Aborted Invasion 280
XVII Apologists at Work 303
XVIII Lives for Sale 313
XIX Missiles in Cuba 334
XX What Led to the Crisis 345
XXI Anticlimax 367

XXII The Cost 395
XXIII Root of the Tragedy 418
Index 435
A Foreword
How did Communism succeed in establishing an outpost in

Cuba, at the very threshold of the world's most powerful capi
talist nation, posing a threat to the entire Western Hemisphere?
In attempts to answer this question, many books have been writ
ten by Cubans and non-Cubans.
Some of these, written by people who suffered grievously at
Castro's hands, naturally reflect their hatred of the dictator and
those who lifted him to power; others, treated well by Castro or
charmed by his magnetic appeal, portray him sympathetically,
sometimes in heroic dimensions.
This book will be different, if only because I have been quite
literally a man of two countries, as much an American as a
Cuban, long and well acquainted with key actors in the drama
on both sides of the ninety-mile water strip between the coun
tries.
Of Latin American parentage, I was born, raised, and edu
cated in the United States and during forty years of residence
in Cuba, I constantly visited the land of my birth, maintaining
old friendships and making new ones.
In this unique position it was essential that I understand the
traditions, customs, and laws of both countries, that I think in
Cuban as well as American terms. Over the years I came to
know many of the men in both countries destined to play im
portant roles in the Caribbean tragedy of the last decade. To
protect clients and friends I remained in Cuba in the initial
10 DAGGER IN THE HEART
Castro years. After the Bay of Pigs debacle I was arrested and
threatened with execution by a firing squad.
I write as one who was in a position to see what was taking
place from close-up, and to appraise it from the vantage point
of both Cuba and the United States. By providing this extra
dimension I hope to give the reader a more rounded picture of
the events that led to Cuba's betrayal to Castro and Communism.
My law partner of several decades, Jorge E. de Cubas, who

became one of the most respected lawyers of our generation,
contributed a great deal to my understanding of Latin America.
I first met Jorge de Cubas in 1927, just after I had obtained my
law degree from the University of Havana. He was twenty-two
years old and had spent his life in Cuba, whereas I had lived
for thirty years in the United States. It seemed to me that if he
and I combined the experience of our different backgrounds and
our respective knowledge of the traditions and psychology of
each country, the partnership might well prove effective. Jorge
agreed, and soon we rented a small office and installed second
hand desks, a typewriter, and a filing cabinet.
From that time until the firm of Lazo & Cubas was destroyed
by Castro a few days after the Bay of Pigs invasion, our partner
ship prospered. With every year its clientele and income grew and
its staff expanded. At the end we numbered twenty-two lawyers
and seventy-five employees altogether, all Cubans. The primary
reason for such progress in a relatively short period was the
exceptional talent, excellent judgment, and far-ranging cultural
and intellectual interests of my partner. A second reason perhaps
was that we adopted and adhered to the highest American pro
fessional standards of organization and responsibility, which I
had learned from a brief but intensive experience with one of
New York's outstanding law firms.
On countless occasions Jorge and I discussed the customs and
traditions which prevailed in Cuba and Latin America, in con
trast to those of the United States. Our conversations covered a
wide range of social, political, economic, and legal problems. My
A FOREWORD 11
erudite partner explained the Latin American attitudes, while I
presented the American point of view. These discussions, which
have continued to the present day, have always been a source of
delight and wisdom.
We quickly reached the conclusion that it was impossible to
understand the American and Latin American people without
an understanding of the historical background of the peoples
and areas from which they emerged. This would teach us why
nations are what they are and cannot, in fact, be anything dif
ferent. A recognition of the reasons for the inherent dissimilari
ties, we agreed, would provide the only true basis for friendship
between the nations of the western hemisphere, and this simple
conclusion interested us very much indeed.
The Iberian peninsula, which now embraces Spain and Portu

gal, was overrun through the centuries by a series of invaders,
including the Romans, who gave the natives their Latin language.
The Arabs arrived in A.D. 711, and dominated the area for
about seven centuries. During this long period Jews also were
present in great numbers, and there was a blending of Christian,
Moslem, and Hebrew cultures. Side by side in Iberia, the Jews
worshiped Jehovah, the Moors Muhammad, and the Christians
Christ.
The Jews were the intermediaries between the Christians and
the Arabs. With their renowned intellectual alertness they had a
gift for languages, and excelled also in the monetary field, al
though their principal contribution to Spanish culture was in
literature. Many famous Spanish authors were Jews or partly
Jewish. Significant also is the fact that the Jews intermarried with
the Christians to a far greater extent than did the Moslems.
The Arabs made tremendous contributions to science. They
originated algebra and developed general and pharmaceutical
chemistry. Their influence was great in agriculture-they built
irrigation systems and introduced many new crops, including
sugar cane, cotton, lemons, and oranges. They established new
enterprises such as the leather and ceramics industries, and they
DAGGER IN TIlE HEART
organized 'a system of weights and measures and a customs serv
ice. A vast number of words in the Spanish vocabulary are of
Arabic origin, as is much of Spanish cooking.
The most indelible Arabic influence on Spanish civilization,
however, was political in nature. The caliphs were the absolute
rulers on all matters, both civil and religious, and the people
came to regard them as all-powerful and all-wise. When the
Arabs were eventually defeated by the Christians and expelled,
this universal "messianic" concept of the caliphate was trans
ferred to the king. For the people, conditioned by centuries of
Arab rule, he became the final all-powerful authority on whom
they depended with child-like faith for the solution of all their
problems.
The Jews were expelled in 1492 and the Arabs driven out a
little more than a century later. Since virtually all professions and
trades, and all kinds of governmental, scientific, intellectual, and
business enterprises had been in the hands of these practical and
intelligent members of society, the effect on the economic and
cultural life of the region was catastrophic. The set-back was
made worse by the tendency of the natives, who considered them
selves Christians first and then Spaniards, to regard themselves
as far superior to the other two races, and to disdain their occu
pations and trades. Craftsmanship and commerce dried up. The
splendid farms of the Moors fell into ruins:
In a spirit of racial purification called limpieza de sangre, the
Spaniards would do nothing that the banished castes had previ
ously done. With the exception of the farming needed for sur
vival, they regarded manual work as beneath them. Their means
of earning a livelihood, therefore. became circumscribed. They
could enter the priesthood, join the military and bear arms for
their king, or go to sea and seek gold in newly discovered Amer
ica. In the name of racial purity the Spaniard became a super
Christian, more Catholic than the semi-pagan Popes, and this
in tum explained the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation. Reli
gious intolerance became a national trait that persists to this day.
The Spaniards were the first people in Europe to embrace the
A FOREWORD 13
doctrine of racial purity, which later was espoused by the Nazis.
in Germany. They were indeed the master race of the world
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when they founded
the first great empire since Rome.
The Spaniards call the fall of Granada and the final defeat of
the Moors the "Reconquest" of their country. Yet they retained
the Moorish pattern of government, under which the caliphs had
wielded absolute power in every field. They continued to regard
their king as the all-powerful and all-knowing authority, in effect
a messiah. This complete and blind trust in the monarch proved
decisive in shaping the political structure of Spain and of its colo
nies in America, even after their independence. It prevented the
ordinary Spaniard from developing a sense of responsibility in
public affairs. To this day he lives with little feeling of social
responsibility to individuals or to his community. He has little
concept of the teamwork and cooperation which are so charac
teristic of the Anglo-Saxon societies.
In 1559 Philip II took a step that greatly affected the history
of Spain and Latin America: He shut the frontiers of Spain
against the ideas of the Reformation. Spaniards were not allowed
to leave and study outside of Spain, so that the country became
insulated from the cultural and political progress being made'
elsewhere in Europe. Spain ignored not only the Reformation
but the Industrial Revolution and the new political ideas of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as well, and its isolation con
tinued virtually until the twentieth century.
These then were the salient characteristics of the Spaniard as
he emerged from the crucible of the Reconquest, and it was in
this era that the conquistado., set forth to discover, conquer, and
colonize Latin America.
The fabled conquistador's trinity was "gold, glory, and God,"
but he scorned ordinary labor to accomplish these ends. He was
the knight of the purified faith, but he was also quite unfitted
for the task of civilizing a new continent. He was incapable of
methodical, patient, continuous effort. He was a bad politician
and a worse administrator and he arrived in Latin America in a
spirit of adventure and without his women. These virile young
men mixed their blood with the natives and produced the mes
tizo, or half-breed. Later, when Negroes were brought from
Africa, the Spaniard mixed his blood with theirs too and pro
duced the first mulattoes.
In contrast, the settlers of the North American colonies arrived
in the new world from the land of the Reformation, with their
families, bringing with them the great traditions of democracy
developed under the common law of England. They did not
intermarry with the Indians, whom they defrauded, debased,
and almost exterminated. (At the time of the Battle of Little Big
Horn-Custer's famous Last Stand-the Indian population of
what is now the United States of America numbered only about
300,000.) Later, when the colonists imported slaves from Africa,
they did not openly mix with them either. This is one reason
why the United States is faced today with such serious racial
problems, whereas Latin America is virtually exempt from racial
intolerance and tensions. (Brazil, for instance, is thought by
many to be the best adjusted society in the world; it has never
had a race riot.)
There were other striking differences between the colonization
of North America and that of Latin America. The civilization
and culture of Latin America were fairly well advanced when
North America was still a wilderness inhabited by savages.
Hence the English and the Dutch had the experience and ex
ample of Spain and Portugal-to emulate or to avoid. Holland
was a small country with a middle class interested in expanding
its commerce and trade. The English settlers accepted few re
strictions imposed upon them by the mother country. They did
not come merely in a spirit of adventure but for new and perma
nent homes. Some came to the new world in search of religious
freedom. Others came to avoid the provision of English law that
only the oldest son could inherit land. All brought with them a
way of life similar to that which they had known in the mother
countries.
They were not motivated by the lure of gold or silver, since
A FOREWORD 15
these had not been reported to exist in quantity in North Amer
ica. They had no interest in converting the Indians to their faith,
understanding their religion as a guide for their private con
sciences. They were prepared to engage in all kinds of work, no
matter how menial. They were frugal, they planned ahead, and
their willingness to tackle manual tasks set a salutary example
for the succeeding generations. Their ties to the mother country
were loose, their commercial activities virtually unrestricted.
They had a strong sense of public and community responsibility
and strove to develop a relatively democratic form of govern
ment.
The civilization of Latin America developed along entirely
different lines. The new territories were ruled and strictlyregu
lated by the needs of the mother country, with which the colonies
were not permitted to compete. The new colonies, therefore,
were little more than a source of precious metals and raw mate
rials for Spain and Portugal. The most to which they could aspire
was cultivation of the agricultural products needed for survival.
Furthermore, in order to protect its ships against pirates Spain
regulated its trade with the colonies in such a way that only two
of its own ports, Cadiz and Sevilla, were permitted to trade by
sea with the colonies; by the same logic, products of the over
seas territories could be exported to Spain only from certain
designated points. For many years the only ports authorized to
.carry on this trade were Havana, Vera Cruz in Mexico, Porto
Bello in Panama, and Cartagena in Colombia. Thus, great areas
of the continent located far from the authorized ports, in many
cases with virtually no means of communication to them, were
left undeveloped. Not until the eighteenth century was England
permitted a limited maritime trade with some of the Latin colo
nies. Portugal's 'attitude toward Brazil was similar to that of
Spain toward its own colonies.
The Christianity which the Spaniards brought to the new
world was strongly apostolic in nature. Exploration and mis
sionary work went hand in hand, the colonizers considering it
their obligation to convert the Indians. This explains the magnifi
cent cathedrals of Latin America and its numerous churches
and convents, its religious schools and universities. In contrast,
there are few notable cathedrals and missions in North America,
with the exception of those in former Spanish and French ter
ritories. The English settlers built churches in every town and
hamlet, but they were small and modest.
The conqueror and colonizer of Latin America came to the
new world to enrich himself quickly, not to undertake enterprises
that required patient effort. Foresight is not a characteristic of
the Spaniard. He utilized the Indians and then the Negroes to do
the work he would not do himself. Until very recently, in conse
quence, the youth of Latin America for the most part chose
university studies leading to degrees in the field of letters and
the humanities. There is a great lack of engineers and technicians
in Latin America, but an overabundance of lawyers, many of
whom are idle. Fidel Castro was a lawyer-without clients
one of many political activists with legal training.
In the millennial tradition of their forefathers, who looked to
the caliphs and kings for leadership, the Latin Americans seek
and admire strong political figures. This has produced what is
commonly known as the caudillo, or leader, who is followed less
for his ideas than because of his charismatic personality. This
has been a serious deterrent to civic development, of course, but
the concept is deeply rooted in history. It will disappear, but
slowly-very slowly.
Democracy has been emerging in Latin America but also very
slowly. It could not be otherwise. For many centuries Spain
and Portugal deliberately cut off their colonies from the new
political, social, and philosophical ideas burgeoning in the pro
gressive areas of the world. True, in the early nineteenth century
the ideals of the American and French revolutions did reach
Latin America through the leaders of the independence move
ments there, but the masses lived in a political vacuum and were
completely unprepared for political freedom. The South Ameri
can countries have had constitutions for well over a century and
A FOREWORD 17
a half, but constitutional government and democracy are not the
same thing. For many years, let us remember, the Constitution
of the United States protected slavery, and part of the national
economy rested upon that system.
No free and stable political institutions can be imported. De
mocracy can be achieved only through a long and slow process
during which the people realize from personal experience that
it is for them the best form of government. It has to grow out
of the soil, out of the traditions and psychology of the masses.
Most of the Latin American countries, for inescapable reasons
of history, do not yet have this tradition and spirit. In fact, many
well-educated and intelligent Latin Americans are still far from
convinced that democracy is the best form of government for
their nations at their present stage of political and economic
development. Some of them feel that for them it is a weak and
costly form of government, one that does not necessarily guar
antee progress. Although the Latin Americans and the Spaniards
are strongly individualistic and resent being deprived of their
fundamental personal rights, most of them believe that consti
tutionalism and democracy, as well as economic growth, cannot
be maintained and cannot flourish except on a foundation of
order and stability. Communism, anarchy, and totalitarian re
gimes are intolerable to the Latin Americans, who prefer military
rule to any of these. Military regimes come and go, but Com
munism is feared to be permanent.
It is a mistake for Americans and Latin Americans to com
pare their countries to one another to the disadvantage of either.
It is a mistake, for instance, for Latin Americans to argue that
their countries are more democratic in the personal sense than
the United States because of their spirit of racial tolerance or
because their mode of private living may be more advanced. The
racial problems in the United States derive from history, as do
the Latin American political problems.
Again, we must try to understand why we are what we are.
We must learn to live with the facts of life because we will not be
18 DAGGER IN 11IE HEART
able to change them in any short space of time. It was the failure
on the part of the Washington policy-makers to recognize these
simple truths that in time delivered Cuba to Communism, and
the cost has been very high, so high that it cannot yet be meas
ured.
CHAPTER ONE
Darkness Descends
In the eady morning hours of the third night following the Bay
of Pigs invasion in April 1961, I was summoned from a Cuban
prison and told I was about to be executed.
During the next forty-odd minutes, while seated alone on a
bench, I looked back on my life as a Cuban lawyer, crowded
with colorful events. There was no reason for the slightest hope
that I would live to record my experience, and I had none. The
Castro firing squad, I thought morosely, would blot out any
chance of recounting personal experiences which might help
explain why and how the happy Cubans of a few short years ago
had been plunged into darkness. .
I had been arrested at our Varadero beach house, eighty
miles east of Havana on the north coast, on the morning of the
invasion. Three 0-2 Agents, with Czech Tommy guns slung over
their shoulders, had taken me in a patrol car to the town jail,
where my cell was soon packed with other prisoners. Varadero
is a vacation resort, but many of the natives live the hard life of
professional fishermen, and a number of them greeted me as
they were brought in. Carmen, my wife, had followed the patrol
car to 0-2 headquarters in Varadero, where the police officials
lied to her. I was wanted only for questioning, they said, and
would be released shortly.
During the next three days we were moved three times, on
foot and in trucks and buses. We spent two days and nights in
the baseball park of the city of Matanzas, twenty miles west
DAGGER IN THE HEART
toward Havana. It was an improvised concentration camp. On
platforms over the high wall which enclosed it, machine guns had
been mounted at locations which permitted their crews to sweep
the field. Gradually the park filled with other prisoners from the
surrounding countryside until about thirty-five hundred men
were massed together there. The small grandstand along the
first-base line, the only partIy covered structure, had been roped
off, and guards prevented the prisoners from approaching it.
Four hundred women prisoners were herded beneath the grand
stand.
Almost all the men were laborers and unskilled workers,
including many cane cutters. A few were priests. When soldiers
escorted into the camp the first of these, a smiling mulatto in
his cream-colored robe and red sash, the prisoners applauded
and cheered. The machine gunners on the walls opened fire, and
all of us dropped fiat, not knowing whether the shots were pass
ing overhead. No food was served, and the shooting was repeated
several times when small groups began shouting "hambre, ham
breI-We are hungry!" Water came from a single hose, with a
line of men a block long awaiting their turn. There was no pro
tection from the rain, nor shade protection from the burning
midday sun. Like myself, most of the prisoners were in their
shirtsleeves, and at night we huddled or stretched out together
on the ground for warmth in the chill air.
At times we watched tanks, mounted on flatbed trucks, move
slowly past on the adjoining Havana-Cardenas road, the gun
turrets visible over the walls. Two or three men rode on the
turret of each tank. Their black leather hoods, laced under the
chin, gave them a sinister appearance in the poorly lighted street,
especially when the men themselves were black. Some, apparent
ly not realizing that we were prisoners and expecting a friendly
response, raised their arms in the clenched-fist Communist greet
ing. The prisoners, as they stood in small groups watching the
tanks, were totally, eloquently silent.
Most of my fellow prisoners were inured to physical hardship,
but on the second day they began to drop. We carried more than
DARKNESS DESCENDS %1
a hundred to the main portal, where we lowered them to the
ground in the meager shade. Eventually they were taken away
on stretchers. Curiously, many of those who fainted were young
sters. We thought they would revive, but were not so sure of
the elderly men.
Gusanos (worms) is what Castro called us. Weeks later I
would learn that approximately a hundred thousand had been
rounded up and imprisoned throughout the island on the day of
the invasion. The lists had been compiled by secret street-cor
ner "Vigilance Committees" of fanatical Castroites, in prepara
tion for the expected invasion. Our immobilization was managed
very effectively from Castro's point of view. In the prisons and
concentration camps many died. Men were crowded into under
ground pits for more than a week, without food, water, or sani
tary facilities. Women had miscarriages, and some went insane.
My cousin, Dr. Enrique Guiral, a gentle and scholarly Havana
lawyer, died in a damp cell in La Cabana fortress. One of his
cellmates, the grandson of a former Cuban president, later
brought me the sad news. It had been evident that Enrique was
developing pneumonia, he told me, and for five days his fellow
prisoners had vainly pleaded for a doctor. Then the guards
removed the body, and the government bulletin reported heart
failure. Pedro Menocal said, "Your cousin was a wonderful
person. Because he had seen us shivering from the cold, he
wouldn't let us wrap him in our clothes so long as he had the
strength to resist."
I know that a permanent bond was forged among the Matan
zas prisoners during those April days, when we received from
one another only unaffected kindness. From the first moment a
spirit of fellowsRip prevailed. The term "lower class" was never
used in Cuba; there were few class distinctions. At first, natural
ly, we spoke freely only with those whom we knew well, but
before long everyone was a friend.
Though we could not know what was happening at the Bay
of Pigs, we had no doubt that the invasion would succeed. It
was common knowledge that the liberation forces had been
DAGGER IN THE HEART
trained and equipped by the United States government, and the
thought that the action could fail did not occur to any of us.
That possibility was never even mentioned-it seemed outside
the bounds of reason. American troops would be there if needed,
we assumed, and there would of course be overwhelming air
coverage. It would all be over in a week at most, we agreed.
By the second day we had established friendly relations with
the machine-gun crews on the walls. The word went around that
they would come over to our side when the first attacking planes
appeared. I used to speak jokingly of Cuba as a country of
"organized disorganization"-provinces, municipalities, minis
tries, and bureaus, with little discipline below these levels. The
Cubans are notoriously individualistic. I was all the more struck,
therefore, by the plans for a mass break to take over the city of
Matanzas that quickly took shape within the ball parI( walls.
Almost at once, out of tbe seeming confusion, leaders emerged
who organized the prisoners into groups, assigned to converge
on specific military posts and police stations where arms were
deposited, and on radio facilities. We were elated at the thought
of contributing to Castro's defeat by capturing Matanzas, where
the only two good highways connecting Havana with the four
eastern provinces merged into one. In view of the temper of the
people at the time, we were certain that this could be accom
plished with little bloodshed. A report circulated that Santiago
had fallen and that a provisional government had been installed
there. It evoked joy, but not surprise.
Subsequently certain Americans claimed that Castro bad little
popular opposition and that the invasion could not have suc
ceeded in any case. This is grotesquely false. Cubans close to
tbe people and their mood at that time believe that the action
came close to succeeding despite Washington's incredible mis
takes. I am thoroughly convinced, in any case, that if any
friendly planes had appeared over our concentration camp, we
would have broken out and captured the strategic city.
We had our light moments, of course. The bright, quick-witted
Cubans are famous for irrepressible and lively humor, even in
DARKNESS DESCENDS 23
the most serious situations. One of my devoted friends was a
teen-aged boy with whom I had spent many happy hours in my
boat. I used to think of him as a Cuban Huckleberry Finn. He
was remarkably handsome, bronzed by the sun, barefooted,
and always full of good spirits. His long blond sideburns and
ready smile were extremely attractive to the girls of his group.
At the Matanzas camp he left my side only to forage for things
which might bring me some comfort. Once he returned with a
half-bottle of Coca Cola given him by a girl friend in militia
uniform. Another time it was a crude sandwich of mixed meats
and cheese stolen from one of the guards. Late one afternoon
this rangy, long-legged kid smilingly brought me a leather jacket.
Previously we had covered the field together, picking up scraps
of paper to insert under my shirt at night for warmth.
"Where did you get the jacket?" I asked.
"What do you care where I got it," he said. "Wear it, put it
on."
He had far more trouble returning the jacket unobserved than
he had had in sneaking it away.
(Long afterward word reached us that this fine youngster was
shot, but we have no details other than that there were no
charges and no trial.)
One of the prisoners, in his early thirties, had the blackest
skin and the whitest teeth I had ever seen. He must have been
born with a smile on his thin, happy face because it never left
him. He was extremely popular and was known to everyone as
"EI Americano." I walked over to him and asked if he could
speak English. "No, Senor Gusano," smiling broadly. Had he
ever been to the United States? "No, but I would like to be
there right now." Did he smile when he was angry, while cursing
someone, for instance? "Si, amigo Gusano, that is my problem.
No one will ever believe I am angry." Later I learned that he
was known generally in the Matanzas area as "the American"
only because he was so wen liked.
During the second night it was announced over loudspeakers
that the prisoners were to be moved from the ball park, and lines
began to form. I stood observing the scene. A tall, slender,
somewhat stooped sugar farmer was beside me, and I asked him
where he thought we would be taken. He was in his late sixties,
about my age. We had become friends when I learned that for
many years he had cultivated cane for a nearby mill owned by
George Walker, a modest, soft-spoken, handsome ex-Marine
who, until his recent death, was one of the most respected
figures in the Cuban sugar industry. My new friend had lived a
hard and simple life; I liked the economy of his speech, the
manner in which he thoughtfully weighed his answers, and his
serenity. He responded in this instance by turning his haggard
face with its bloodshot eyes toward me and slowly drawing his
forefinger across his throat.
Up and down the column the rumor now sped that, once on
the open road, the buses packed with prisoners would be locked
and set on fire. Those who fought their way out would be
machine-gunned. Another rumor was that the signal for our mass
execution would be the cheers following an announcement that
the Castro government had fallen. Someone remarked wryly
that the Castro boys had picked an appropriate place for the
matanza. The name of the city, Matanzas, also means "massa~
cres," and although it no longer has that connotation in ordinary
speech, it derives from a dark page of colonial history: Near
Matanzas the Spaniards had herded the last of the native Siboney
Indians into a beautiful valley and had exterminated them.
No reports reached us that the invasion, a short distance away
on the south coast, had begun to collapse. I am certain that even
our guards would not have believed such a report. Our faith in
the power, efficiency, and determination of the United States
government was simply too deep to encompass the thought of
its failure, despite two years of Castro's hysterical "anti
imperialist" campaign against the United States through his
controlled press and broadcasting facilities.
It should be recalled that no American publications were per~
mitted to reach the Cuban public. The Voice of America spoke
feebly to only an insignificant part of it. In his own language,
DARKNESS DESCENDS
moreover, Fidel Castro has oratorical talents which sway un
thinking masses. He had been telling the Cubans that in 1898,
with the war against Spain already won, the United States had
"intervened" in order to exploit the Cuban people and resources
through the imperialist system of capitalism.
The indoctrination of Cuban youth along these lines was well
under way. But the thousands of Matanzas prisoners of April
1961 were mostly of the older generation, untouched by the
anti-American avalanche of lies. Their confidence in the Ameri
can people and Government was especially heartwarming to a
man like myself, born and educated in the United States, who
for so many years had enjoyed the dual nationality of both coun
tries.
Lined up in double columns, we were transported in buses to
some unoccupied school buildings on the outskirts of Matanzas.
I found myself with thirty other prisoners stuffed into a dormi
tory room intended for two students. The window had been
nailed shut and there was no ventilation. We sat or stretched
across one another on the fioor, hungry and exhausted. The san
itary conditions were appalling, the stench suffocating. It was
night, and quiet. My farmer friend sat propped in a comer at
the far end from the door, and I was dozing against his shoulder
when someone nudged me.
From far down the hall I could hear, "Let prisoner Mario
Lazo present himself," and the men began to shuffle and move
to open a path for me. The farmer reached for my hand, clasped
and held it, but we did not speak. I looked at an old friend from
Varadero seated nearby; he was slowly moving a fist as if to
pound the tile fioor, but he did not look up. As I picked my
way toward the door someone said, "Lazo, wait." I stopped and
turned. It was HEI Americano." He had begun to move toward
me, steadying himself on shoulders and heads. Most of the men
were awake now; there was a light in the hall just beyond our
door, and the scene was dimly visible. For once "El Americano"
was not smiling. I stood motionless, and when he reached me
he kissed me on the cheek and turned back without a word. As
I made my way down the hall other prisoners patted or touched
me, and several kissed my hand.
The young man who called me out was a sergeant militiaman.
He must have been of mixed Chinese and Negro parentage, and
I could not fail to identify him again. He spoke only once as
we moved off: "Bad news for you. We have a Revolutionary
Court Decision ordering you to the pared6n." The word had
not been known to most Cubans before the Castro era. It is
derived from pared, meaning wall, and was occasionally used to
describe the crumbling thick wall of an ancient building. But by
then every Cuban knew that pared6n meant the execution wall.
They had heard the screaming mobs at the organized mass ral
lies chanting, "Pa-re-d6n!-To the wal1!"-in cadence when
Castro denounced those who had the courage to disagree with
him. Already several thousand Cubans, and some Americans,
had fallen at the pared6n without the semblance of a fair trial
or, as in my case, any trial at all.
Thus was my death sentence announced to me, casually,
quietly, without a hint of drama or a tremor of feeling. Yet the
sergeant's words did not shock me. We prisoners had been
steeped in thoughts of death for only a few days, but already it
seemed routine.
"May I speak to someone in authority for three or four min
utes?" I asked.
There was no answer. We walked toward the main entrance
of the adjoining school building, about a block away. I wondered
why I had been singled out from all the Matanzas prisoners.
Was it perhaps because the law firm of which I was senior part
ner had rendered many thousands of hours of service to various
departments and agencies of the American government? Some of
my friends had warned me that I was regarded as an American
spy. In fact, I had been using the diplomatic pouch of a Euro
pean country to get reports to the FBI, and it now occurred to
me that the pouch might have been violated. Was it perhaps
because the British Ambassador and his family had been our
-DARKNESS DESCENDS 27
guests at Varadero during the weekend before the invasion? I
had walked down the beach with the Ambassador one night,
carrying a bug light. In view of the invasion which followed two
days later, might this innocent pastime have been regarded with
suspicion by the G-2 agents who, I knew, had me under sur
veillance?
I was ordered to sit on a bench, where I began to observe my
surroundings. The grounds were lighted. There were three long
school buildings, and one or two small administration buildings.
The main building, in front of which I was sitting, was a two
story structure, and those on either side were of one story. The
whole area, comprising eight or nine acres, was surrounded by
a grilled fence built into a masonry wall. The bench on which
I sat, trembling, cold, and frightened, was one of several along
both sides of the walk leading to the main entrance of the cen
ter bUilding. A machine gun mounted to my right pointed to
ward the entrance on my left, and its crew sat on a nearby
bench. Armed guards paced the walks and the exterior wall,
which was about the distance of a football field away. I was in
the very center of the enclosure, the only person not in uniform.
Across the walk from me, but nearer the building, sat an
army captain whom I took to be the officer in charge. He was
talking to another officer standing at his side. I strained to hear
their conversation, but could catch only an occasional word.
The windows on the ground floor of the main building were
barred shut, as ours had been, but the second-story windows
were open and prisoners leaned over the ledges. Someone there
shouted my name. I raised an arm in response, without discov
ering who had called. It did not occur to me to try a break-I
would have been shot down after the first few steps. Here I sat
for the better part of an hour, resolved that my life would end
with dignity, even among strangers and with no one to record
the scene.
Resting an' arm on the back of the bench, I lowered my head
into the palm of my hand, closed and covered my eyes. I thought
of Carmen, who would be working tirelessly to obtain my re
DAGGER IN THE HEART
lease. Though she knew there was not an ounce of compassion
in the Communist-controlled G-2 Secret Police, she would work
on anyway. I thought of my children, Sandy, Chips, and Don,
and of my sister Blanche and my brother Carlos.
All of them knew that two months earlier I had been in the
United States on business, and had chosen to return out of a
conviction that where there is despondency and danger among
one's friends, that is where a lawyer belongs. They thought well
of me for having returned, and this was a source of deep satis
faction as I sat alone on the prison bench that night.
I reviewed again the circumstances that had brought Castro
to power and were responsible for my personal plight. I thought
to myself: How shocked the American people would be if they
knew and understood the full story. More keenly than before,
in what I took to be my last hour of life, I resented the conduct
of a number of Americans--two in particular, a journalist and
a diplomat-whom I consi4ered the principal architects of the
Cuban tragedy, also a tragedy for their own country. How ut
terly catastrophic that a firing squad was soon to cancel out the
intention I had cherished of some day recording the facts as I
knew them.
Today I am able to say with Virgil, "These things I saw and
part of them I was." I have little mysticism in my makeup, but
I have wondered whether I was spared by fate in order to fulfill
that intention.
CHAPTER TWO
Fragments of the Past
I am sure that man's most precious possession is his memory,

and now I know that under conditions of intense stimulation the
power of recall is remarkably sharpened. This was in some
measure my experience as I sat in the prison yard awaiting exe
cution in April 1961.
The panorama of the years seemed to unwind before my
mind's eye. Episodes that had stretched over days and months
were reenacted completely and in detail in fractions of a second.
The facial expressions of an affectionate father as he related,
more than fifty years ago, incidents of my childhood, came
clearly into focus. As though they had taken place only moments
before, I recalled events of my school and college years, adven
tures in World War I. Long forgotten episodes and even conver
sations seemed to surface from the depths.
'" '" '" '" '" '"

The years spent at a well-known preparatory school in a
Philadelphia suburb were the unhappiest of my life. Students
in American private schools are more sophisticated and tolerant
nowadays, but back in 1909 Latin Americans were regarded as
outsiders by most of their classmates. But the college years were
quite another story.
Half a century ago, as today, Cornell University was one of
the world's most democratic educational institutions. In a setting
of great natural beauty, the campus high above the small col
DAGGER IN THE HEART
lege town and the lake in the valley below, students of every
race and color took part in the wholesome community life with
an equal and fair chance in all campus activities. The rugged,
competitive life, the bitter cold winter months, the heavy class
schedules, and the high scholastic standards combined to de
velop character, stamina, and self-confidence. What counted
were the simple virtues that have been cherished through the
centuries, with social and economic position meaning little. My
law degree is among the lesser benefits of the good Cornell years.
I was halfway through college when Germany started the
First World War by hurling her armies through neutral Bel
gium. My roommate and I began marking the positions of the
retreating Allies with small colored pins on a large wall map.
The British were overwhelmed and decimated by the tremen
dous numerical superiority of the Germans, but they fought de
laying actions at Mons and Le Chateau, permitting the French
to assemble for the "Miracle of the Marne," when it seemed
Paris would fall within a week. Finally, the western front settled
into trench warfare waged from the English Channel to the
Swiss border; the line swayed backward and forward without
breaking, while more than a million lives were poured into the
conflict.
Possibly there were pacifists on the Cornell campus at that
time, but I do not recall any. In 1915 and early 1916 many of
my classmates debated whether we should complete our courses
or enlist in the Al1ied armies. The vast majority of the students
yearned for American intervention. Then, on April 6, 1917,
the United States entered the war.
At the end of our Officers' Training Course at Plattsburg,
New York, I was commissioned a Captain of Infantry. A small
group from our camp volunteered to report to the New York
Port of Embarkation in the belief that we were on our way to
France, but we got to the Port and no further. I was assigned as
Assistant to the Chief of Staff there.
The embarkation work in New York harbor involved the
colossal task of coordinating the movements of troop ships
FRAGMENTS OF THE PAST 31
mainly British and American, and seized German liners-with
the arrival of troop trains from all parts of the United States.
There were only two embarkation camps in the New York area
to cushion the inevitable schedule dislocations, but we managed
to dispatch the constantly arriving regiments of eager young
Americans at the rate of one-third of a million each month.
Often we worked around the clock.
One day a General Staff Officer who had just landed from
France told us of the shocking report he was carrying to Wash
ington. The Allied cause seemed on the verge of collapse. The
French offensive at Chemin des Dames had been a disastrous
failure. Firing squads had been used against men who broke and
ran, and there was talk of revolution. England was in danger of
starvation because of the strangulating German U-boat cam
paign, and Russia, too, was suffering frightful defeats in the
field. The question, the General said, was whether the weary
veterans in the trenches of Europe could sustain their fearful
burden until enough fresh American troops arrived to turn the
tide of battle.
That night I left a note on my superior's desk, saying that I
wished to resign my commission and be attached as a private
to any combat unit moving through the port. Despite his firm
refusal, he must have made some moves in my behalf because
the following week I was summoned by the General in command
of our Embarkation Port. Washington wanted a captain for a
special mission to General Pershing's headquarters in Chaumont,
France. The purpose of the mission would be explained on ar
rival, and I would have to return quickly to the United States.
Did I want this assignment? I certainly did, feeling that once in
France I could find a way to remain there.
I set some kind of a record in reaching the headquarters of
the American Expeditionary Force, where General Pershing and
members of his staff received me almost at once. Pershing was
reputed to be a stem taskmaster and disciplinarian, but he spoke
to me, a young captain, with cordial informality.
Later, alone with Pershing and his American Chief of Staff,
I learned of the long and hard struggle they had waged to achieve
and maintain an independent American Army. Because it was
related to my mission, I was shown the battle plans for the St.
Mihiel offensive, the first major action in which the American
Army was to fight under its own flag. Pershing gave me letters
addressed to President Woodrow Wilson and to his father-in
law, Senator F. E. Warren, suggesting that I keep them fastened
to my chest with adhesive tape. I also carried back to the United
States nine small boxes of hand grenades and other French ord
nance, to be duplicated and mass-produced in the United States.
On completing my mission in Washington, I was able to join
a line division training in California, but just as we were about
to start east on our way to France, the war ended.
Naturally, I had watched the reports of the St. Mihiel offen
sive with intense interest. Launched along a 25-mile front in
mid-September of 1918, we had liberated more than 70 villages,
taking nearly 16,000 prisoners and capturing 450 enel!ly guns.
Probably more than any other single operation, this one imbued
the war-weary Allies with the conviction that they could drive
forward to victory. Within a month the German Chancellor re
quested a general armistice, and full triumph came to the Allies
on November 11, 1918.
Details of these great events swarmed through my mind as I
sat on the prison bench. The American fighting man and his pro
fessional leaders have no superiors in the world. In my travels
I have talked about them to men of many nationalities-British,
French, German, Russian, Japanese-and I have never heard
them deprecated. It was not until after the Bay of Pigs fiasco
that I first heard American military leadership disparaged, when
criticism of the Chiefs of Staff was leaked from the White House
to the press in an effort to shift blame for the failure to the
Pentagon, in order to shield the President's reputation for the
resolute leadership he had failed to demonstrate in this instance. 1
1 Arthur Krock, In the Nation: 1932-1966 (New York: McGraw-Hili

Book Company, 1966), p. 323.
FRAGMENTS OF THE PAST 33
* * * * * *
There were also good memories of the Second World War,
when my Cuban law firm was entrusted with a great mass of
work for various departments and agencies of the U.S. Govern
ment. The Florida Straits and lower Atlantic seaboard were
then alive with German submarines, and airports from which
bombers could hunt down the intruders had to be either ex
panded or built from scratch. A great nickel-producing war plant
would rise out of the jungles of eastern Cuba. All these enter
prises involved negotiations with the Cuban Government, and
they kept our increasingly large staff of lawyers working late
into the nights.
Early in its career my firm had adopted the policy of offering
its services gratis to any American citizen who was in serious
trouble in Cuba and was unable to pay a lawyer. Now, during
World War II, we decided to handle the work for the American
Government without profit, as an expression of respect and affec
tion and as a contribution to the common war effort.
The practice of law in Cuba for over a third of a century had
been a rewarding experience, until the courts were purged by
a Communist police state. Respect for the integrity and inde
pendence of the judiciary had mounted notably before the ad
vent of Castro. All this progress was destroyed in less than a
year in the name of "proletarian revolution."
While I was still brooding, engrossed in such memories of a
life that seemed about to be cut short, someone nudged me. It
was the sergeant. He said that the captain wanted to see me.
CHAPTER THREE
Reprieve and Escape
When I approached the captain, he asked for my name.

In the Latin countries, one's name is customarily a composite
of the paternal and maternal surnames, joined by the letter "y,"
meaning "and." It is a custom firmly imbedded in filial devotion,
in that it permits one to retain the mother's name for a genera
tion, but because of the length of the composite name, the
second part is usually dropped in everyday conversation.
"Mario Lazo," I said.
"Mario Lazo what?"
"Mario Lazo y Guiral."
"Yes," said the captain, "you're the one. Go back and sit
down." He turned again to the officer standing at his side.
"Sir, may I speak to you for two or three minutes?" I asked.
But he neither responded nor looked in my direction. I went
back slowly to my bench, realizing he simply wanted to make
sure they were going to shoot the right man. Other G-2 prisoners
with whom I have talked have all observed the arrogance of the
Communist Secret Police. Sometimes, when one asks a question,
they may glance at you for an instant and then tum away as if
they had not heard or even seen you. Their attitude, especially
toward those who do not work with their hands, is one of total
contempt.
Once more I returned to my thoughts, but soon the sergeant
was nudging me again. This time the captain was motioning to
me to come along. We walked back toward the building from
REPRIEVE AND ESCAPE 35
which I had come and we reached a place where a patrol car
was parked. As we approached, three soldiers got out, armed
with Tommy guns. The captain motioned me into the front seat
and he got into the driver's seat, the three soldiers climbing in
behind.
As we began to move toward the main portal, I remembered
the manner in which my close friend, Dr. Pelayo Cuervo, had
been murdered following an attempt to assassinate Batista and
his family in the Presidential Palace. The chauffeur of the death
ride had given the details later. In the emotional aftermath of
the assassination attempt, in which members of the Palace guard
and of the police corps had been killed, Pelayo, an honorable
and courageous Havana lawyer, had been taken from his home
and driven out to Country Club Park; while sitting in the front
seat he had been shot through the back of the head and dumped
beside the road. I imagined that I would be taken to some
isolated spot and told to get out and run, whereupon I would be
shot down "trying to escape." Now, out of the corner of my
eye, I began observing how the soldiers in the rear were han
dling their guns. They were holding them in their laps.
The heavy grilled doors of the main entrance were swung
open by guards; the car moved through and pulled up on the
outside, and I was told to get out. It was a moonless night and
dark. At that moment, from the deep shadow of the wall, out
stepped my wife, Carmen, and two of my most devoted friends,
Eugene Desvernine and Ernesto de Zaldo, junior partners of
my law firm. They were smiling. I stood motionless for a mo
ment, wavering, unbelieving. Then the captain told me I had
been released, I could go.
I will not attempt to describe the scene, the embraces, the
tears, the almost paralyzing sense of relief. Our car was parked
in the shadows down the street, and we quickly got into it and
drove to Varadero.
The reason for my reprieve'? Several circumstances had com
bined to bring it about. On the previous day Carmen had driven
to Havana and had returned with a medical certificate attesting
that I was under insulin treatment that, if withheld for even a
short time, would induce coma and death. The G-2 officials paid
little attention to such certificates, but Carmen was reaching
for any straw. In truth the statement was not accurate, but the
doctor was an old friend; great loyalty to family and friends is
one of the marks of the Cuban character. That night Gene and
Emesto had completed a four-hour trip back to Havana from a
Revolutionary Court trial in Pinar del Rio, and they continued
east with Carmen to Matanzas. There the three sat on the curb
outside G-2 Headquarters for six hours, trying to get to the
officer in charge.
The break came when Carmen was able to push into the office
of the G-2 chief. At that moment he had received the news that
the Bay of Pigs invasion had been crushed. Also the G-2 had
decided to move the Matanzas prisoners again, this time to an
abandoned chicken farm, as the school buildings were needed
for the wounded in the invasion battle. The officer in charge read
the medical certificate and heard Carmen's tearful plea while
waiting to be connected with the school prison.
In this atmosphere of jubilation, confusion, and feverish
activity, with armed agents excitedly shoving their way into and
out of the crowded office, the chief completed his call and at
the end, with Carmen's hand gripping his arm, added as an
afterthought: "And by the way, you have a prisoner who is an
old man and sick and whose name is Mario Lazo y Guiral. If
he is able to walk, release him."
That was it! Except that those in charge at the other end of
the line had thought it would be amusing to act out the execution
threat. The young sergeant who gave me the pared6n news, I
feel sure, did not doubt its accuracy. The Castro regime once
claimed that it did not resort to physical torture. This has been
disproved long since, but in any case I can testify to the mental
torments.
On our way back to Varadero my rescuers informed me that
the invasion had been crushed. The news left me momentarily
stunned and speechless. Could it really be possible? I finally
asked. Were they absolutely positive about it? Yes, the report
had been confirmed by radio from Miami. There was a long
silence. I tried to collect my thoughts while watching without
seeing the passing landmarks.
Then I asked bow the Howard Anderson case was going.
Andy, a respected member of the American community in
Havana, was the commander of the only American Legion Post
in Cuba, a director of the American Chamber of Commerce,
and owner of the three best automobile service stations in the
capital. Each of the three charges against him was of itself in
consequential. One, for instance, was that at the request of a
Cuban friend Andy had introduced the friend to a member of
the American Embassy staff who was a neighbor. But to the
Secret Police these charges, taken together, marked him as a
CIA or FBI agent.
For several weeks after his arrest we and the Swiss Embassy,
which represented the United States in Cuba, were unable to
learn where Andy was being held. During this period he was
repeatedly told he would be put on the next plane to Miami if
he would sign a simple statement that he had been a CIA or
FBI agent. The police wanted the "confession" for political
purposes only, they said, but Andy was one of those who be
lieved that the greatest homage one can pay to truth is to adhere
to it. Also, he felt it would be unpatriotic to give a statement
that could be used against his country. Eventually he signed a
truthful statement covering the activities on which he had been
questioned, after which we were permitted to see our client.
Six of our lawyers &tudied the case and were in agreement that
under Castro's own Revolutionary Code the maximum penalty
that could be imposed was a prison term of nine years. When
I asked Gene and Emesto what the outlook was, I wondered
whether we had had a favorable break in the case.
After a moment's hesitation Gene said, "I am terribly sorry
to tell you this, Mario, but Andy was executed at dawn this
moming. When the invasion came they moved the trial up a
week."
38 DAGGER IN TIlE HEART
Again I was shocked into silence. One thought that came to
mind was that this atrocity might well return to plague Castro.
Howard Anderson was an important man in the American
Legion, and I could not believe that this influential organization
of more than two million members would accept with equanim
ity the news that Andy had been murdered.
"How did they get away with it under the law?"
Gene said, "Mario, the law had nothing to do with it."
He explained that all the arguments for the defense had been
offered. The decision itself had quoted the article of Castro's
own Penal Code, which called for a nine-year prison term, but
had gone on notwithstanding to impose the death penalty. The
prosecuting attorney had closed his delirious demand for execu
iton with a monstrous lie. If Andy had been a Cuban, he shouted,
and were charged with the same offense in the United States, he
would have been executed without a trial or tortured for twelve
years first, as Caryl Chessman had been tortured in California.
He ended by saying the happiest moment of his life would come
at dawn the following morning, as he watched the bullets pene
trate the body of Howard Anderson and saw "rotten American
blood fertilize the soil of Cuba." Perhaps, he added, some plant
would grow there and Cuba would receive a benefit, after all,
from having been placed by God only ninety miles from the
United States.
"That was what the man said," Gene concluded. "We have a
date with him when Castro falls."
We drove in silence along the winding coast road.
Then he said, "I imagine that we are the last four Cubans
who still admire the United States."
We were approaching Varadero, which was in darkness. When
we reached our house, at the far end of the beach, we did not
turn on any lights. Carmen brought some Scotch to the northern
terrace overlooking the Florida Straits, and we drew our chairs
around a small table. It was tremendously comforting to have
Gene and Ernesto with us. We had worked together in complete
harmony for many years. Their devotion, courage, and intellec
tual capacity had fashioned a bond between us that had taught
me to count my age by friendships such as theirs rather than by
years. They were both Phi Beta Kappa graduates of American
universities, as well as graduates of the University of Havana,
and I did not know any Cubans more familiar with the great
traditions of the United States.
No other houses shared our particular stretch of beach. The
servants were in Havana; we were isolated and alone. It must
have been three o'clock in the morning. The sea was calm and
the waves barely rippled as they washed ashore. Far off to the
east, in the moonless night, the lighthouse on Cayo Piedra
flashed long and short, marking the entrance to Cardenas Bay.
We were too wrought up to think of sleep, so we talked until
the first streaks of dawn colored the sky.
We could not understand why nothing had been heard from
the Cuban underground. We had assumed that when the invasion
came the underground would sabotage power plants and knock
out broadcasting stations, water facilities, road and railroad
bridges in the invasion area. This had not occurred. During the
preceding three days Castro propagandists had been on the air
constantly, and tanks had moved freely along the highways, un
molested in any way.
We all knew boys who were in the underground. Some of
them were as close to us as sons or brothers. It had been a
stirring experience to talk to them, especially to members of
the Catholic Action group. Their courage, zeal, devotion to one
another, and hatred for Castro were superb. Unhesitatingly they
had risked their lives again and again to help a friend. There
was nothing they would not do for one another or for their cause,
yet they had been modest and almost casual in relating their
fascinating, often heroic experiences. Many had died at the
pared6n.
Catholic Action is a church organization of volunteers who
desire to help their fellow faithful be better Christians in the
Catholic manner. As a means of identification the activists in
Cuba used a simple drawing of a fish. This was copied from
early Christian art on the frescoes of the Roman catacombs,
dating from the persecutions under Nero. The fish was chosen
by early Christians because the Greek word for it, IXCT1J£, formed
the initials of the phrase "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior."
Carmen and I had often seen this symbol painted or scratched
on walls, or stroked in sweeping curves in the Varadero sand.
A discussion arose about the Monroe Doctrine. It isn't strange
that the educated Latin American should be better informed on
the history and significance of the Monroe Doctrine than his
American counterpart. For 138 years it had been a bulwark
protecting the independence of the former Spanish colonies.
And it had been effective from the start because, although the
United States was still a small and struggling republic in 1823,
when President Monroe had warned Russia, Prussia, and Austria
to keep hands off the American continent, England had co
operated. She did so with good reason, seeing in the Doctrine
a solution to the restrictions Spain had imposed for almost 300
years on her trade with the Spanish colonies. Without England's
consent the nations comprising the Holy Alliance could not
cross the Atlantic. By 1895 the United States had grown in
strength and stature. When the Doctrine was invoked against
Britain itself that year, in a boundary dispute involving British
Guiana and Venezuela, the British had bowed, accepting arbi
tration. It was then that President Cleveland wrote, "The Doc
trine cannot become obsolete while our Republic endures."
On one point we were all solidly in agreement as we talked
that night-the Latin Americans have known power and they
respect power. What they deride is hesitation, weakness, and
failure.
What, then, had brought about the incredible invasion failure?
Why had the United States been unable to act as a first-class
power in the Caribbean, which the whole world regarded as
an American lake? Someone remarked that the Soviet Com
munist leaders must have been fascinated by this revelation. I
vowed that if it took me the rest of my life I would find the
answers to these questions.
Day had come. It was time to start back to Havana.· As we
arose and stood looking out over the Florida Straits, we were
comforted even then by the thought that the American people,
our friends, lived only a few miles beyond the horizon. The fight
would be ours, and we would carry on alone if necessary, but
the Americans had helped us in our struggle for independence
and we could at least count on their understanding and sym
pathy. Thus we started back to Havana, eighty miles to the west,
reassuring one another on the way to restore our spirits. When
we reached the outskirts of the city Gene and Emesto went
ahead to learn of any overnight developments. The news they
relayed to us was both bad and good. The G-2 had seen through
Carmen's ruse and were after me again. One of their jeeps had
left our house only minutes before, after searching every room.
The good news was a message that we were expected at the
Italian Embassy. A guest room was being held for us. We drove
there at once.
The Cuba of tomorrow will owe a debt of gratitude to the

Marquis and Marchioness de Te6doli, the Italian Ambassador
and his wonderful Hungarian wife. Valorous, able, experienced,
and devoted to their friends, they gave asylum to members of
the underground who were able to reach their Embassy. Unlike
the Latin American countries, Italy did not have a treaty right
to protect political refugees, but in the aftermath of the invaSion
collapse, when access to the Latin American Embassies was
under strict surveillance, the high, grilled portal of the Italian
Embassy garden was opened and relocked, again and again, to
admit men and boys who would have been shot had they been
captured. It was all accomplished with quiet, hospitable effi
ciency. The experience was not a new one for the Marchioness,
who had saved more than fifty lives in Budapest when the
Soviets smashed the rebellion of 1956.
Among the political refugees we found a young man who
had commanded the underground group in the area where the in
vasion took place. He was a soft-spoken lad, in his early twenties,
and extremely attractive. He had a smile that appeared and
faded very slowly, while the expression of his eyes remained
unchanged. In impressive detail he explained how his group had
been prepared to destroy the power plants and bridges in the
whole province of Matanzas, "in less than two hours, and to
create the worst panic imaginable." He and his group had been
trained and supplied with explosives by the CIA, he said, and
they had infiltrated into Cuba from Central America. His men
were in constant contact with one another and always ready for
action, but, unbelievably, they had never received the agreed
upon signal from the United States. Hence, when the time came
they had not moved, thinking the invasion report a Castro trap.
Castro had every reason to fear such freedom fighters. Day
after day the Cuban cities had resounded to explosions as gov
ernment buildings and plants had been sabotaged. The guerrilla
activities had far surpassed those of the anti-Batista underground
in 1958. The night skies often reflected flames of burning cane
fields, all eloquent testimony of the mounting opposition to
Castro and Communism.
While Carmen and I listened, absorbed and astonished, to
the young man's almost fantastic tale, one of the other saboteurs
spoke to us, motioning with his head to an adjoining room,
where an improvised altar had been set up. About sixteen boys
had gathered there. My wife moved close to the altar as they
knelt in prayer. I am not a practicing Catholic, and I withdrew
to a corner to observe the inspiring scene. I watched a boy who
a few days earlier had helped set the fire which, without loss of
life, had totally destroyed the EI Encanto department store and
who was now on his knees. While they were immersed in the
service the thought crossed my mind that I was witnessing one
of the bright moments in the history of the Church.
The service ended and the boys arose slowly, one by one,
and then began joking and roughhousing. One of them ap
proached me and said, "Sir, don't look so serious; we will bring
Castro down." He turned to leave, but came back and repeated,
"Never doubt it for a moment, Dr. Lazo. You may be absolutely
certain that, eventually, we will bring him down."
That night two of our closest American friends, Louise and
Gilbert Smith, also took refuge at the Italian Embassy. Louise,
beloved everywhere in Cuba for her untiring social work, had
more recently shifted her energy to d~gerous activities, joining
us in helping underground fighters. Now she tried to raise our
spirits by telling us of a speech President Kennedy had made
that day, April 20, to a group of newspaper editors, that had
been broadcast from Miami.
The Cuban Freedom Fighters gathered around as Louise
began speaking. It had been a very strong statement, she said,
to the effect that the United States would not hesitate to meet
its own obligations to prevent alien intrusion if the inter
American commitment proved ineffective. "And President Ken
nedy made the definite statement," she added proudly, "that the
United States did not intend to abandon Cuba to Communism."
The small group listened intently and somberly, and remained
silent. Finally, someone asked me what I thought of the Presi
dent's speech. "Just words?" I didn't think so, but it was too
early-coming events would tell. Later, while alone with the
Smiths, Louise recalled that the President had also said that
any unilateral intervention by the United States would have
been contrary to American tradition. But, we reasoned, if non
intervention is a moral doctrine, the U.S.S.R. also must be
bound by it. "Unless it is," Carmen declared, "you end up with
the sorry wreckage which surrounds us today." Was Kennedy
saying that the wrong side may help the wrong, but the right
must not help the right? What about the massive Soviet inter
vention that had already taken place in Cuba? And had not the
United States intervened by mounting the invasion?
It was too early, I repeated; we did not know what had
happened, or why. But I would find out, even if it took me the
rest of my lite.
It was in the Italian Embassy that we watched Castro on
DAGGER IN THE HEART
national television explain, with a pointer and large maps, how
the Bay of Pigs battle had been won. He gave credit to his air
force for having turned the tide and excoriated militia units for
having joined the invaders. They were in need of discipline, he
said. The chosen landing site, he admitted, had caught him by
surprise, and he called the invasion plan "masterful." He also
conceded that if the invaders had been able to consolidate their
beachhead, they could not have been driven out. It was clear to
all of us, as we watched and listened in silent grief, that America's
failure had raised Castro to the pinnacle of his power and
prestige.
After a week the Embassy became so jammed that Carmen
and I decided to give up our room to others who, we felt, were
in greater danger than we were. So, under assumed names, we
moved to a hospital owned by a friend.
We made our escape from Cuba, where I had lived for thirty
six years, several weeks later, in late May 1961. Our last indi
vidual client had been murdered, the properties of virtually all our
corporate clients, both Cuban and foreign, had been confiscated.
Our beautiful law offices, occupying the top floor of Havana's
most modem office building, had been demolished, although
technically they had become our property under Castro's Urban
Reform Law (the rentals paid to the State were regarded
legally as purchase price instalments). The government had
notified us that it wanted the space for its own use; the paneling
had been ripped from the walls and the partitions and doors
removed. Our cherished Varadero house, with its treasure of
family records and art objects lovingly chosen and personally
brought from Central and South America, had been confiscated
the day following our departure for Havana. No explanation or
receipt was ever given. The Havana house had been left tem
porarily free in the hope that I could be trapped there.
There was drama in our escape from Cuba but some of the
people who helped us are still subject to reprisal, and that story
must be left for another day.
When we arrived in the United States we had not wholly lost
confidence in its greatness, but as a result of our experience our
enthusiasm had been dimmed. I felt that a trip across the conti
nent, to immerse ourselves in the expansive beauty of the land
and its civilization, would refresh us. Carmen had never been
on the Pacific Coast, and my own acquaintance with California
was limited to the brief period I had spent at an army camp there
during World War I. We drove to Seattle, then down the coast
of Oregon and California, and came east through the National
Parks.
No one can make that journey without being overwhelmed
by the grandeur of the nation, but even more impressive to us
were the people we met. We made it a point to talk to as many
as we could-hotel clerks, shop people, filling station attendants,
and others. And the therapy was effective---our faith in America
was restored. Invariably, when they learned that we were
Cubans, their response was the same: "We have to get rid of
Castro." The American people, we saw clearly, were single
minded in their desire to take whatever action was necessary to
rid the Western Hemisphere of Communist penetration.
To these people in particular I address myself. The more
they know about the way in which Cuba was turned into the
first Soviet beachhead in the Americas, the greater will be their
resolve to eliminate it.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Brightest Pages
While still young, I learned that the historian tends to write from
the point of view of his own nation. Usually it is not his conscious
intent to distort events but simply to emphasize the aspects with
the greatest appeal to his readers. Few Americans, for example,
are aware that at the decisive battle of Yorktown in their own
Revolution, more Frenchmen were engaged in the assault than
were American patriots, or that the French suffered more than
twice as many casualties. School children in France, however,
read this in their histories; they learn more than American
youngsters about the brilliant achievements of the carrot-headed
young Marquis de Lafayette and about the vital part played in
the Yorktown victory by French Admiral de Grasse's blockading
fleet.
Similarly, Americans and Cubans received divergent accounts
of the Spanish-American War and of the final Cuban War of
Independence. Americans think of their war in terms of the
blowing up of the battleship Maine, Teddy Roosevelt's charge at
San Juan Hill, the sinking of the Spanish fleet as it attempted to
run the blockade of Santiago harbor, and Admiral Dewey's vic
tory at Manila. The Cubans, on the other hand, regard the Span
ish-American War, which lasted less than four months and in
volved 385 American battle deaths and a total of 4,108 casualties
altogether, as merely the final chapter of their own three and
a half year struggle, in which about 200,000 people died. Both
mE BRIGHTEST PAGES 47
accounts are correct. The disparity is one of emphasis rather
than of distortion.
But with the advent of Castro an element of planned distortion
entered the picture. Since 1959 all Cuban history books have
been rewritten. Cuban children are now being taught that in
1898, with the Cubans on the verge of victory, the Americans
"intervened" imperialistically in order to dominate and exploit
their country. Castro has expounded this theme in television
broadcasts on many occasions.
In any case, it is not possible to evaluate the events of the
misnamed "Castro" Revolution of 1957-1958 without at least
a summary knowledge of Cuban history. Having lived in both
the United States and Cuba, I believe that I am able to outline
the salient record objectively.
The Cuban War of Independence, which began on February
24, 1895, was a vicious and brutal conflict that in some respects
resembled the American Revolutionary War. Although there
were numerous sharp encounters, in neither was there anyone
decisive batt1e in which the rebels gambled everything. In both
cases raw rebel troops faced numerically superior and well
trained regulars. The population of Cuba at that time was
approximately 1,500,000, and Spain sent more than 200,000
soldiers to subdue the country.
The chief blunder of the Spaniards was that despite an over
whelming superiority in numbers they fought defensively, forti
fying the cities and, at great expense, building long defensive
lines of entrenchments the entire width of the island, from north
to south. These entrenchments proved no. barrier to guerrillas
under Generals Maximo G6mez and Antonio Maceo. The latter
was a mulatto and probably the greatest Negro military genius.
His exploits, in which he defeated superior Spanish forces almost
at will, made him a legendary figure. At West Point, so long as
the cavalry remained an important military element, his brilliant
campaigns were taught in lectures. (Maceo's mother bore her
first husband four sons. On his death she married Marcos Maceo,
to whom she bore seven sons. Nine of the eleven sons, together
with the elder Maceo, died in Cuba's struggle against Spain.)
Another hero of the War of Independence, General Calixto
Garcia, achieved fame through the book by Elbert Hubbard, A
Message to Garcia. In dramatic rhetoric it told of a determined
American, Lieutenant Andrew S. Rowan, whose mission was to
find General Garcia in order to coordinate military plans when
the Americans entered the war. Rowan got to Garda, but he
never thought he had performed a heroic deed and disliked the
publicity he received from the estimated four million copies of
the book disseminated.
As Gomez and Maceo continued to inflict defeats on the
Spaniards, command of the Spanish forces was turned over to
Valeriano Weyler, known in Cuba as "The Butcher." He im
mediately launched a reign of terror. His plan was to suffocate
the rebellion by exterminating the population, old and young,
women and children. Inhabitants of country districts were or
dered into concentration camps and those who refused were
treated as rebels. Executions became a daily occurrence, antici
pating the Castro era. The reconcentrados died of hunger and
disease by the thousands. It is estimated that more than 300,000
unfortunates, a fifth of the population, were thrown into concen
tration camps, and that less than half of them survived.
When accounts of these atrocities were published in the Amer
ican press, popular American sympathy swung solidly to the side
of the Cubans. In fact, a joint belligerency resolution was over
whelmingly approved by Congress, but the President held back,
influenced by strong pressure groups favoring suppression of the
rebellion.
The War of Independence reached a turning point on Febru
ary 15, 1898, when the U.S. battleship Maine, dispatched to
Cuba to protect American citizens, was mysteriously blown up
in Havana harbor with a loss of 266 of her officers and crew.
The disaster provoked investigations and endless discussions as
to who was responsible. (Although the Maine was raised to the
surface and studied in detail in 1911, the mystery of her sinking
THE BRIGHTEST PAGES 49
was never solved.) But the American people now clamored
for an end to Spanish rule in Cuba.
Joining in the outcry was the colorful Under Secretary of the
Navy, Theodore Roosevelt. On March 27 President McKinley
sent an ultimatum to Spain, which accepted most but not all its
conditions. On April 11 McKinley asked for a declaration of
war, and Congress authorized him to send an American force to
Cuba. The Congressional Resolution provided that after pacifi
cation the United States would "leave the government and con
trol of the island to its people."
The Cubans exulted over the American declaration of war
but not all of them welcomed an invasion. General Maximo
G6mez, for instance, said frankly that he would prefer that not
a single American soldier set foot in Cuba. He asked only for
arms and ammunition and a blockade against Spain. He wanted
to retain for the Cubans credit for winning their own independ
ence, and he also feared that invasion and occupation would
mean annexation. Many Americans, in fact, ridiculed the prom
ise that the United States would withdraw from Cuba after Spain
capitulated. 1
From now on events moved rapidly.
The major part of the Spanish fleet was blockaded in the Bay
of Santiago de Cuba, and toward the end of June an American
army was landed near that city. Best known of the troops were
a regiment of "Rough Riders," made up of western cowboys.
To many of his countrymen Roosevelt, who was second in com
mand of this regiment under his friend Colonel Leonard Wood,
came to personify the Spanish-American War.
When the Spanish fleet tried to run the blockade early in July.
it was completely destroyed. Puerto Rico was occupied and
Admiral Dewey's naval victory at Manila Bay had been followed
by American occupation of the Philippines. The Spanish army in
Cuba surrendered two weeks after the annihilation of the fleet,
1 Willis Fletcher Johnson. The History of Cuba (New York: B. F. Buck

& Company, Inc., 1920). Vol. Four, p. 109.
so DAGGER IN THE HEART
and Spain was ready for peace less than four months after the
Americans entered the war. Commissioners from the United
States and Spain met in Paris to draw up a treaty, the non-Cuban
features of which proved to be the acquisition by the United
States of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
What is not generally remembered-and is a circumstance
that Castro never mentions-is that one of the first steps taken
by the chief of the Spanish peace mission was formally to request
that the United States annex Cuba. 2 The "Pearl of the Antilles,"
the exquisite gem of Spain's island possessions, where Columbus
had touched the New World, had bestowed many rich gifts on
the mother country. More Spaniards resided there than in any
other distant area; more Spanish capital was invested there.
Now, in Paris, the vanquished were asking their conquerors to
protect by annexation Spanish citizens and investments in Cuba.
The United States refused to annex Cuba. There are few
brighter pages in American history than those which tell of the
unselfish and constructive policy pursued by its government at
that time and during the difficult years that followed the signing
of the Treaty of Paris. The story is in marked contrast to what
had happened in other times and at other places, notably in
Mexico.
The Treaty of Paris provided that the United States should
act as a trustee of the island, assuming responsibility "for the
protection of life and property," and that on the termination
of American occupancy the new government should assume the
same obligations.
Historians linger lovingly over the drama of battles and cam

paigns. Usually they have little to say of the dreary years of po
litical adjustment and economic organization that always follow
the termination of hostilities. Yet no nation was ever born with
out such a period of trial. Fighting had ceased on July 16, 1898,
2Ibid., p. 119.
but it was not until May 20, 1902, almost four years later, that
the American flag was lowered over Morro Castle and the new
Cuban flag raised.
Patriot soldiers drifted home, ragged and penniless, often to
find that their very houses had disappeared. Family after family,
stripped of everything by years of war, set valiantly to work, till
ing the soil with home-made wooden plows, often with teams of
men tugging in harness. What would be the relationship between
Cuba and the United States? The question was a source of
anxiety for the Cubans and equally perplexing to the United
States. The atmosphere was explosive. What might have hap
pened had already been demonstrated in the Philippines, where,
under similar conditions, an accidental fight between sentries
had touched off two years of cruel and bloody warfare.
Happily, no such event occurred in Cuba, and the American
military occupation marked the beginning of a half-century of
political and economic progress in Cuba that perhaps has never
before been equaled in modern history. The manner in which
the relationship between the two countries was defined pro
foundly influenced Cuban political developments during the first
half of the twentieth century, indeed until the day Castro was
brought to power on January 1, 1959.
The first important steps for the creation of a Cuban Govern
ment were taken under the military administration of General
Leonard Wood. An elected Constituent Assembly convened in
November 1900 to draw up a constitution similar to that of the
United States, with an executive branch and an independent
judiciary and a bicameral legislature. The resulting 1901 Con
stitution reflected American influence not only in its content but
even in its phrasing.
The aspect of Cuban-American relations that aroused most
controversy was the so-called Platt Amendment. Congress was
about to end its session in 1901 when Senator Orville H. Platt
submitted an amendment to the army appropriation bill consist
ing of seven brief articles designed to provide the basis for the
future relationship between the two countries. It was part of an
Army bill because Cuba was then being administered by the
War Department.
Of the seven articles, only two aroused opposition in Cuba.
One, Article III, provided that Cuba "consents that the United
States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of
Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate
for the protection of life, property and individual liberty. . . ."
The other, Article VIII, provided that Cuba would "sell or lease
to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations
at certain specified points ..." The delegates to the Constitu
tional Assembly were told that inclusion of these provisions, as
an appendix to their Constitution and later in a permanent treaty
between the two countries, was the price of independence. The
American demands were acceptable to conservative (''uban
elements but provoked opposition by some politicians.
On June 12, 1901 the Convention adopted the Platt Amend
ment, and in due course it was added as an "appendix" to the
Constitution. Later, in 1903, its provisions were incorporated
into a treaty between the two countries.
The considerations that inspired the Platt Amendment were
realistic and in keeping with the principles of the Monroe Doc
trine. Cuba's privileged geographical position made it the key
to the Gulf of Mexico, and the United States did not wish to have
a situation develop in Cuba that would invite non-American
intervention. As early as ] 562 King Phillip II of Spain had un
derlined the importance of Cuba. "He who owns the island of
Cuba," he said, "has the key to the new world."
Over the years the Platt Amendment proved to be of inesti
mable value to the young republic. It induced the flow of Ameri
can capital to Cuba, contributing enormously to its economic
development. It was the sole reason why Cuban bonds sold in
the market at a better price than those of such countries as
France, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. After its adoption, how
ever, the American diplomatic representative in Havana would
exert, on occasion, greater influence in the political life of the
THE BRIGHTEST PAGES
country than the Cuban President himself. Political opponents of
the established Cuban Government would at times look to him
as the final arbiter among contending forces.
Cuban political leaders thus became accustomed to relying on
American political tutelage. Even after the Platt Amendment
was abrogated in 1934, during the first administration of Frank
lin D. Roosevelt, they often looked to the American Ambassador
for solutions to major problems. That the significance of this
is not wen understood by Americans who lack a knowledge of
Cuban history is suggested by a remark which Arthur M. Schles
inger, Jr., attributes to President John F. Kennedy. Referring to
the former American Ambassador to Cuba, the President com
mented, "Earl Smith once said to me that the American Ambas
sador was the second most important man in Cuba. What a hell
of a note that is!" 3
Smith was right, of course. He might have added that on occa
sion the Ambassador was the most important man. That is why
in 1958, only twenty-four years after Cuba had attained full
sovereignty, many Cubans believed that Washington knew what
it was doing when it ousted Batista and cleared the path for
Castro to come to power.
After the adoption of the Constitution of 1901, with the Platt
Amendment as a rider, Cuba went on to choose its Congress and
President. The chief of the triumphant revolution, General
Maximo G6mez, was offered the presidency but declined. "Men
of war for war," he said, "men of peace for peace." G6mez sug
gested Don Tomas Estrada Palma, who was elected without op
position.
Meanwhile General Wood had done an excellent job as mili
tary governor. With inflexible integrity and great rapidity he
created new institutions based on U.S. models. A public school
system was established, and fifteen hundred Cubans were sent
to Harvard for a summer of teacher training. Roads, hospitals,
3 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thollsand Days (Boston: Houghton

Mifflin Company, 1965), p. 224.
/
S4 DAGGER IN THE HEART
a postal service, and port customs were put in order. The judicial
system was reorganized. Many of the men who had served in
the revolutionary army were incorporated into a system of rural
guards. Not the least of the achievements was a medical miracle.
Yellow fever, long a scourge of Cuba, was virtually wiped out
within a year after General Wood had assigned Dr. Walter Reed
to conduct the experiments which eventually proved the validity
of Dr. Carlos Finlay's theory that mosquitoes transmit the dread
disease.
Cuba's first President was a man of dignity and integrity. The
years of his first administration, 1902 to 1906, are generally
regarded by Cubans as the best of their Republic. Don Tomas
Estrada Palma carried on General Wood's program of public
works, education, and sanitation, and by 1905 there were ap
proximately twenty-five million dollars in the National Treasury.
This, however, is said to have excited opposing political am
bitions, and there were charges that the President's reelection
that year was fraudulent. In August 1906, facing open rebellion,
Don Tomas requested American intervention under the Platt
Amendment, and this took place in September 1906 when
William Howard Taft, who had headed that mission, became
provisional governor of the island. He was soon replaced by
Charles E. Magoon. Although the Magoon administration was
later criticized, it introduced the merit system into government
service earlier than in any other Latin American country.
These and subsequent events illustrate the fact that the demo
cratic process cannot be implanted merely by changing the fonn
of institutions. Democracy must evolve slowly and painfully
through trial and error, as demanded by an increasingly enlight
ened public.
Government became the second biggest "industry" after sugar.
Thousands of government jobs were designated as "confidential"
or "political" in order to remove them from the merit system.
As civil service salaries often were inadequate, many government
employees held other jobs or profited extra-legally. These prac
tices became a form of "social security," but the greater evil was
the patronage aspect of government. Until the advent of Batista
there were six national elections. In every case the victor had the
support of the outgoing administration and each of the six
administrations was marked by growing corruption.
Politicians seeking high office often looked upon the Platt
Amendment as the ultimate weapon in their arsenal. Thus in
1917, when General Mario Menocal was elected to a second
term, the Liberals revolted on the assumption that the United
States would intervene as it had done in 1906, provoking new
elections. World War I was approaching, however, and the
United States made it clear that it opposed revolution. Marines
were landed at Guantanamo, and although they took no part in
the fighting their presence had a quieting effect and the rebellion
soon ended.
When Alfredo Zayas was elected President in 1920, the oppo
sition succeeded in obtaining a form of American intervention.
President Harding sent General Enoch Crowder to Havana,
where he remained as financial adviser until 1923, forcing Zayas
to appoint what became known as "Crowder's honest cabinet."
It was in 1923 that I first went to Cuba, and General Crowder
was the first American diplomatic representative with whom I
dealt. Until the ascent of Castro it was my privilege to deal with
all the American Ambassadors, although the degree of intimacy
varied in accordance with the personalities involved.
In considering the circumstances that led to Batista and later
to Castro, the administration of General Gerardo Machado de
serves attention. Machado won the 1924 elections by promising
honest elections and a single term of office. Despite his campaign
promises and in disregard of the advice of Ambassador Harry F.
Guggenheim, 4 Machado in 1927-1928 obtained constitutional
amendments extending the presidential term to six years, and in
1928 he was reelected without opposition.
4 Thirty years later Guggenheim would offer the same counsel to

Batista. Through a Cuban cabinet official the former Ambassador pleaded
with Batista to relinquish office after presiding over honest elections. Had
this advice been followed, Castro would not have come to power.
Machado's second administration coincided with the world
depression and a collapse in the price of sugar, aggravated by
the enactment of a higher United States tariff. Economic chaos
provoked political unrest, which led Machado to adopt suppres
sive measures. As terrorist activities were stepped up, reprisal
begot reprisal, and by 1933 Cuba was again on the verge of
civil war. Machado's strong-arm methods stamped him as a
dictator, and with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt the
United States sent Sumner Welles to Havana as its Ambassador,
with instructions to attempt mediation.
During this period, as guerrilla warfare developed in the coun
tryside and terrorism spread in the cities, I was in almost daily
contact with Welles. On occasion I would drive to appointments
with him in a suburb of Havana at night, when the only lights
were the headlights of my car, and with bomb explosions and
machine-gun or riOe fire punctuating the stillness. Only the police
force stood between the civilian population and complete an
archy, and even here there was a certain amount of turmoil.
Havana's police chief had been replaced on many occasions and
there came a time when about a third of the police force was
composed of men with criminal records. Reports reached us of
plots to assassinate the Ambassador in order to provoke inter
vention, and I conveyed these to Welles. Nevertheless, he always
rode through the streets of Havana unguarded, and we came to
have the highest regard for his courage. Welles was later re
placed by Jefferson Caffery, who moved through Havana pre
ceded and followed by patrol cars of heavily armed men, as
Castro does at the present time.
The Welles mediation attempt failed, and when a general
strike developed he concluded that Machado must go. But a
spontaneous revolt occurred during the first days of August and
the Cuban army took charge of events, forcing Machado to flee
the country on August 12, 1933. The government that replaced
him proved to be vacillating and indecisive, and political intrigue
continued under conditions of near-chaos.
It was under these circumstances that Batista rose to power
mE BRIGIITEST PAGES 57
not, as in the case of Castro, with the help of the American State
Department, but on his own. He offered the only hope for
stability in Cuba. Much of the country's history between 1934
and December 1958, when the United States once again in
tervened, forcing Batista to leave the country, revolves around
his figure.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Rise of Batista
Close friends of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, rome of whom

are men of great integrity, speak of him as having been sincerely
devoted to democratic ideals. There are those among them, in
fact, who believe that his principal weakness was a reluctance
to be sufficiently ruthless under conditions of extreme provoca
tion, out of an excessive desire to achieve and hold popularity
with the masses.
They point to the fact that although he was the most powerful
man in Cuba during the seven-year period following the Ser
geants' Revolt of September 4, 1933, he did not take over the
Presidency until he had been constitutionally elected in July
1940; that capital punishment was ruled out during the seventeen
years he held power; that in May 1955 he sponsored a sweeping
amnesty of all political prisoners (including the Castro brothers,
who had served only a year and a half of a fifteen-year prison
term for leading an assault on an army post).
Batista's bitterest enemies and critics, on the other hand,
paint him as a monstrous dictator. Castro has accused him,
repeating the charge over and over again in Hitler fashion, of
having murdered twenty thousand Cubans. Herbert L. Matthews,
commanding the immense influence of The New York Times,
generally supports Castro's charges, depicting Batista as a beast
of the jungle, of tigerish ferocity, "as ruthless and predatory as
any dictator in Latin American history." 1
1 Herbert L. Matthews, The Cuban Story (New York: George Braziller.

1962), p. 58.
THE RISE OF BATISTA S9
Between the two extremes were the hundreds of thousands
like myself who attempted to assess Batista's strengths and
weaknesses objectively. I became disillusioned with him on
March 10, 1952, when he interrupted the democratic process
and took over the Palace by a coup d'etat. I viewed the event
with dark foreboding. It seemed to me at the time that the clock
had been turned back, that the slow progress Cuba had been
making over the years toward free government had been dealt
a crushing blow. Although my law firm had supervision over a
number of important industrial construction projects, including
the two largest in Cuban history, all requiring constant dealings
with the Havana Government, I never spoke to Batista. again
while he remained in power and have had no contact with him,
directly or indirectly, to this day.
By training and experience, a lawyer learns to distinguish
fact from fancy, and now with the perspective of retrospect, I
believe I am able to relate the events which ultimately will de
termine Batista's place in Cuban history.
From 1934 to 1940 Batista was in command of the Army
and stronger than the president. From 1940 to 1944 he served
as a constitutionally elected president. After a lapse of eight
years, he returned to power illegally and held it illegally until
constitutionally elected in 1954 and then until he was replaced
by Castro on January 1, 1959.
On May 7, 1933, American Ambassador Sumner Welles had
arrived in Havana and three months later a general strike de
veloped against President Machado. The streets of Havana be
came deserted. In the interior, commercial and industrial activi
ties also ground to a haIt; stores closed, people stayed at home.
On the highways private cars were fired upon. Amid these
critical conditions Machado fled the country in August 1933,
and was succeeded by Carlos Manuel de Cespedes.
The army post which dominates Havana is Camp Columbia
on its outskirts, originally laid out by the Americans, during the
first occupation, in typical American style, with the parade
ground in the center. The Cuban officers did not live in Camp
60 DAGGER IN 11IE HEART
Columbia, and this facilitated a revolt by the non-commissioned
officers in charge. During the remaining days of August condi
tions deteriorated. The capital was flooded with reports of con
spiracies, including a rumor that Communists were planning a
soldier-worker government. A group of non-commissioned offi
cers under the leadership of Batista were the first to take de
cisive action.
Batista called military posts throughout the island during
the early hours of September 4 and told the sergeants that they
were in command. These in turn sent word to the officers not
to return to their· posts. Realizing that the Cuban people would
not support a military government headed by sergeants, Batista
summoned to Camp Columbia the Directorio Estudiantil of the
University of Havana and members of its faculty. The sergeants
then began broadcasting over the radio that they had taken over.
A five-man commission, headed by Dr. Ramon Grau San Mar
tin, a member of the University faculty, was appointed to form
a new government.
Batista, then thirty-two years of age, had been born of poor
parents in the easternmost province of Cuba in 1901. He re
ceived some education in a local school and, after working at
odd jobs, joined the army in 1921. He learned typing and short
hand and in 1928 was promoted to sergeant-stenographer and
assigned as a court reporter. He had a natural gift of oratory
and an attractive personality. Although deficient in education
and culture, his mind worked like lightning and he thought and
acted logically.
President de Cespedes was away from Havana on the morning
of September 4, when the revolt occurred. He returned about
noon. His advisers urged him to declare the army in rebellion
and to ask the United States to land Marines. De Cespedes
vacillated and in the end did nothing.
On September 8 several hundred army officers moved into
the National Hotel, where Ambassador Sumner Welles was then
residing, but Welles moved out shortly after the officers moved
in. Batista threw a cordon around the hotel and the staff walked
THE RISE OF BATISTA 61
out; the officers began to do their own cooking, dish-washing,
and cleaning up. The aviators were assigned to running the ele
vators, the officer in charge telling them jokingly, "You are ac
customed to going up and down."
On September 10 Dr. Grau San Martin, a tall, thin, anemic
looking physician, installed himself at the Palace as Provisional
President amid scenes of wild disorder. With the students in
control, other political groups withdrew. Grau appointed a young
Communist, Dr. Antonio Guiteras, as Secretary of Interior, the
most powerful cabinet position, since that department had juris
diction over the national police.
Although his mother was an American, Guiteras, who did not
look like a Cuban, was strongly anti-American. Tall, very thin,
and slightly stooped, he had reddish-brown hair, talked little,
and made decisions swiftly. He dominated the cabinet and was
responsible for considerable radical labor legislation. Soon after
taking office he ordered the seizure of two of Cuba's finest
American-owned sugar mills. Replacing Grau as the leader of
the radical student group, he and Batista became bitter enemies.
Eventually, when Batista decided to break the power of the
students, Guiteras attempted to escape from Cuba, but he was
trapped by the army in a small Spanish fort near Matanzas and
killed in a spectacular gun battle. Twelve of his followers, in
cluding two women, were captured.
With Dr. Grau in the Palace, anti-American sentiments sur
faced in Cuba for the first time in my experience, coupled with
reports that in the interior Communist agitators were inciting
workers to seize sugar mills and loot their commissaries. Ragged
and belligerent mobs rioted through the streets of Havana. As
they approached, the alarmed merchants would hurriedly pull
down the big iron shutters used instead of doors on most small
establishments. In Cuba, everyone, including Batista and the
student government, believed American intervention might oc
cur momentarily. U.S. warships were known to be close at
hand, to protect American lives and property. An elaborate
plan was devised for evacuating the Americans from Cuba in
DAGGER IN THE HEART
case of complete chaos. Havana was divided into districts and
in each a key man was given a list of telephone numbers so
that at a signal from the American Consulate he could form
groups, after which trucks guarded by marines would take the
Americans to the ships.
At six o'clock in the morning on October 2, 1933, the Cuban
army attacked the National Hotel, more troops moving in from
Camp C?lumbia. The officers were the best shots in the army,
many having trained at American military schools. During the
action two hundred Cubans, most of them enlisted men, were
killed, and hundreds more were wounded. When the ammuni
tion of the officers ran out, they raised the white flag. After they
had been gathered together outside the hotel, unarmed, to be
taken as prisoners, sixteen of them were shot down and killed.
Two days later, on October 4, Batista called on Ambassador
Welles to express his regret over the killing of an American who
had been hit by a stray bullet, the assistant manager of Swift &
Company, one of our clients. Batista and Welles had a long talk,
and in reporting this conversation to Washington Welles said
that Batista had asked for his opinion and that Welles had told
him that he believed Batista himself was the only individual in
Cuba who then represented authority. Welles complained to
Batista of the actions of the Grau government, blaming a smal1
group of students and a few individuals who had joined them for
selfish motives.
Terrorists continued their depredations. In Havana bombs
continually exploded. The Santiago-Havana express was blown
off the track. On November 8 there was a major attempt to oust
the Grau-Batista government. In Havana people ran for cover
when planes stolen from the Camp Columbia air base, and flown
by rebel pilots, sprayed machine-gun bullets into the streets.
Revolutionists raced through the streets in automobiles, firing
rifles and machine guns. News of similar terrorism came from
all over the island. Batista crushed the revolt, but more than five
hundred had been killed on both sides, a toll greater than in any
uprising in Cuba since the country had gained independence.
Batista realized that, as the United States would not recognize
the Grau government, there would have to be a major change.
In late November 1933 Welles was recalled to Washington,
and on December 18 Jefferson Caffery arrived in Havana as
the special representative of President Roosevelt.
As conditions grew worse and Grau lost support among the
Cuban people, he became increasingly anti-American. All this
strengthened Batista's hand, and Caffery threw his support sol
idly behind him.
I had first met Batista at a luncheon given by H. Freeman

Matthews, 'the First Secretary of the American Embassy, at the
Matthews residence in Country Club Park in January 1934. It
was a very small group. In addition to our host and hostess, my
wife and myself, there were Sergeant Batista and his wife and
two of his closest army associates and their ladies, ten or twelve
in all. One of those present was Jose Pedraza, who would later
serve as Army Chief of Staff and be arrested in February 1941
on charges that he was planning to depose "President" Batista.
Still later he would be charged with a plot to assassinate "Presi
dent" Grau and sentenced to a short prison term. Eventually he
would again join forces with Batista in the fight against the Cas
tro rebels. His son would be detained by a group of Castro fol
lowers and murdered in cold blood when his identity was estab
lished. Jaime Marine, another of the sergeants at the Matthews
home that day, would eventually become a Lieutenant Colonel
and President Batista's spokesman in extra-legal transactions
during his first administration.
Naturally we were tremendously interested in the man who
for the first time in modern history had deposed the officers of a
national army and become, almost overnight, the most powerful
man in Cuba. Batista was a good-looking fellow, of medium but
muscular build, and thoroughly simpatico (an untranslatable
Spanish word which implies charm and personableness). He
weighed about 180 pounds and appeared to be imbued with self
confidence, although he spoke rather slowly for a Latin, in a
DAGGER IN THE HEART
modulated voice. With a ready smile he gave his undivided at
tention to anyone who addressed him, grasping a question so
quickly that at times he would answer before it had been com
pleted. Later my wife's sister told us that before the Sergeants'
Revolt Batista had been giving private typing instruction in his
free time to a next-door friend and that the teenaged girls in the
neighborhood thought him unusually attractive. They would be
on the lookout for him. "Look," they would say, "here comes el
projesor."
Batista's determination to obtain American recognition pro
voked a conflict with the Student Directorate. After a tenure
of less than two days by Carlos Hevia, following Grau's forced
resignation, Batista's original choice for the Presidency, Colonel
Carlos Mendieta, was made Provisional President. His inaugura
tion on January 18, 1934, reflected the real temper of the Cuban
people. Great crowds surrounded the Palace for blocks and
cheered themselves hoarse. They cheered President Roosevelt,
Ambassador Caffery, and Sumner Welles, who was now Assis
tant Secretary of State. The United States recognized the Men
dieta government six days after it took office. The elimination of
the Grau student government had been received in Washington
with much enthusiasm. Batista and the American government
were now in accord.
During March 1935 the political opposition attempted a
general strike, with Communist support, and the struggle became
a direct one between the radicals and Batista, who used the army
to break the strike and jailed hundreds of terrorists. Although
communications were largely disrupted, reports were reaching
Havana from population centers in the interior that sugar mills
and industrial plants were being seized by the workers under the
leadership of Communist agitators and that local councils or
"soviets" of manual workers were replacing management. The
United Fruit Company, one of our clients, had its own radio
facilities, and one day its General Manager, Walter W. Schuyler,
was informed that the main water pipeline serving the great
Preston sugar mill in the eastern province of Oriente (not far
from the Guantanamo Naval Base) had been cut and a group of
workers was about to take over.
In Cuba there were two kinds of urban settlements, the
ordinary city or town, and the industrial bateyes of the sugar
mills, consisting of unionized industrial workers and administra
tors permanently employed by the mill and housed near it. The
agricultural field workers lived near the outlying cane fields,
known as colonias, which were linked to the mill by railroad.
Our report was that a small group of men who had never been
employed by the company was already in control of the Preston
batey.
The United Fruit Company, which has contributed so notably
to the industrial and agricultural development of various Carib
bean countries, had its principal office in Boston. In Cuba its
activities consisted of a passenger and freight steamship service
connecting New York and New Orleans with Havana, and the
operation of two of Cuba's finest sugar mills in Oriente prov
ince, on Nipe Bay. On a clear day one could see from Preston
the smoke of the smaller mill located at Banes in the far dis
tance, across many square miles of silver-green cane fields.
When originally purchased by the United Fruit Company, the
lands had been a virtually uninhabited jungle, except for the
town of Banes. Springs were tapped in the nearby mountains to
supply water for the mills and bateyes. Oose to 280,000 acres
were converted into cane lands and fields for cattle grazing. In
1935 the United Fruit sugar properties in Cuba were valued at
close to $40 million. Their annual Cuban payroll was approxi
mately $10 million and 40,000 people depended on the two
mills for their livelihood.
The company's relations with its workers had always been
cordial. Its hospitals at Preston and Banes were among the best
in Cuba; their medical and nursing staffs met the highest Ameri
can standards. Its excellent housing facilities, schools, dairies,
and stores had attracted thousands of Cuban workers to the
two mills. They were provided with free electricity and water
services and encouraged to plant vegetable gardens, the com
DAGGER IN THE HEART
"
pany furnishing seeds, tractors for plowing, and technical super
vision, all without charge. Pasteurized milk was available to the
workers at considerably less than cost.
The wide batey streets were lined with shade trees and well
kept lawns, and there were moving picture theaters, clubs, and
sport facilities. When technical workers wished to send a son
or daughter to an American college, the company contributed
to the educational expenses. Unlike other sugar mills, those of
the United Fruit Company gave most of their labor force year
round employment, in field cultivation, research, and other ac
tivities. In 1934 the Preston mill produced more sugar than
any mill in the world, and as early as 1935 there were only
thirty or forty Americans employed.
Now the owners had lost control of this magnificent property.
and we requested an interview with Batista to lay the problem
before him. Walter Schuyler, a powerfully built engineer and
former football star, is the best executive I have ever known.
He was regarded by Cubans and Americans alike as one of
the leading figures in the Cuban sugar industry. Stern and tough.
but always fair with the few Americans on his staff, he was
silky-smooth in dealing with the Cubans, who often spoke of
him affectionately as a criollo, a word used to denote anyone
who identifies himself with Cuba in nationality and outlook.
Now Schuyler wanted to regain control of the sugar properties
which had been his dream and achievement and to which he
had given the best years of his life.
At the appointed time, nine o'clock one evening, Schuyler
and I were on hand at Camp Columbia. More than a hundred
persons were crowded into a large anteroom, awaiting an audi
ence. Seated beside me was Pincho Gutierrez, the manager of
the famous pugilist Kid Chocolate, who hoped one day to stage
a prizefight in Havana for his protege. This was the problem he
would lay before Batista! I remember asking Pincho whether
he thought Chocolate could regain his crown. "Yes, for two rea
sons," he said. "The first is that I am broke and the second is
that Chocolate is broke."
Batista received os at three A.M., six hours later. The con
versation was brief and to the point. Since he had been born
in Banes, he was thoroughly familiar with the extraordinary
development of the Preston-Banes area, and no time was wasted
on preliminaries. How many soldiers did Schuyler believe were
needed? "Fifty or sixty." Smiling, Batista commented that Cuba
should have an army half the size of its population; "one soldier
for each civilian," he said. He assured us he would order a
trusted sergeant to proceed with an army detail from Santiago
to Preston that same day.
Within seventy-two hours order was restored in both Preston
and Banes without bloodshed or violence. During the following
weeks this experience was repeated over and over throughout
the country. As a consequence, business and industry and the
conservative elements of Cuban society rallied behind Batista.
He was on the way to becoming the jete supremo, expected to
be the final arbiter on all major questions. However, he never
became the all-powerful absolute dictator commonly believed,
as he had to rely on army support and to deal with organized
labor, the political parties, university students, professional as
sociations, major business interests, the Catholic Church to some
extent, and the American Embassy to a very large extent.
The stocky figure of President Mendieta, always dressed in
white linen suits, was also a symbol of returning normalcy. He
was honest and conservative, although somewhat indecisive.
One of Batista's first popular successes was the negotiation by
the Mendieta government of the abrogation of the Platt Amend
ment, which occurred on May 29, 1934. Relations between the
United States and Cuba were further improved in August with
the signing of a new Reciprocity Treaty covering mutual tariff
reductions. The economy began to improve.
Mendieta tried hard to conciliate the warring political groups
before the elections slated for January 10, 1936, and when he
failed, discouraged and saddened, he resigned. The Secretary
of State, Jose A. Barnet, became Provisional President, the fifth
since the fall of Machado. Batista, now a Colonel, repeated that
DAGGER IN THE HEART
the army would remain neutral and act impartially in the com
ing election, the first in which women would be permitted to
vote. It resulted in a victory for Miguel Mariano Gomez, son of
an earlier president and a popular political personality. With
Laredo Bru as Vice President, he took office in May 1936.
At Camp Columbia, Batista built a modern hospital and
masonry barracks for officers and enlisted men, to replace the
wooden barracks originally built by the Americans. He con
ducted a publicity campaign condemning radicalism and eulogiz
ing the military. He advocated public works to provide employ
ment, and a number of social benefits such as old-age pensions.
His favorite project was the establishment of civic-military rural
schools in remote country districts where educational facilities
were non-existent. These areas could be reached only by the
mounted rural guards stationed throughout the country, who
would be the teachers. He opened seven hundred of these schools
and planned to establish twenty-three hundred more. Revenue
for carrying out this program was to be provided by a nine-cent
tax on each bag of sugar produced in Cuba. Farmers and work
ers throughout the country staged demonstrations in favor of
the program, and sugar producers themselves supported it. The
House of Representatives passed the tax bill by a vote of 106
to 43.
President G6mez had quickly come into conflict with Batista
when he dismissed from government office several thousand
military reservists. Now, in a further effort to restore civilian
supremacy, he vetoed the nine-cent sugar tax law, claiming that
it aimed at the "militarization of the nation's childhood." Lack
ing the support of the people, the press, and Congress, however,
he was impeached at a Senate trial, which ended on December
24, 1936 with the decision that he had transgressed against the
free functioning of the legislative power. The Vice President,
Federico Laredo Bru, took office. Thus, by the late 1930s, as
Batista's popularity steadily increased, he had consolidated his
control of the island.
Shortly after the impeachment I had occasion to call on
THE RISE OF BATISTA 6'
Batista at his headquarters in Camp Columbia. 1 no longer re
member the purpose of the interview, but at its close I raised the
question of the impeachment. Many of us, I told him, although
aware of the friction between himself and Gomez, had been
stunned. We had not expected an elected President to be ousted
so soon and in such a fashion. Batista replied that as he enjoyed
little, if any, patronage influence, the legislative impeachment
had been a genuinely democratic move, reflecting the wishes of
the population.
The Cuban people, especially the children, needed education
but also had to be taught discipline, he argued. He spoke of his
son Papito, who was in the habit of interrupting him while at
work alone in his office, ruffiir.g the papers on his desk and
running his fingers through his father's hair. Recently the boy
had picked up an open inkwell and hurled it across the room.
"What is the future of a country," he asked, "whose Army Chief
cannot control his own son?" But he planned to sponsor elec
tions for a Constituent Assembly which would formulate an up
to-date constitution, he informed me, to be followed by free and
honest elections.
The conversation left me uneasy. I had no doubt that he had
engineered the removal of Gomez. His plan to have mounted
sergeant-teachers reach into remote rural areas to give instruc
tion certainly had popular support, but why had this not been
accomplished through the constitutional process of having Con
gress override the President's veto? My American training had
taught me that there was nothing more important than respect
for the law.
Almost all my Cuban friends had a different order of values,
however. To them the essential thing was that Batista had
brought order out of chaos, had given the country the stability it
so greatly needed, and the issue of military versus civil rule was
secondary. By instinct they were attracted to the young new
leader who had met with so much success and was already re
garded by many as a caudiUo.
My partner, Jorge de Cubas, was more analytical. He also
regretted the impeachment but pointed out that it was merely
the culminating incident in a relationship which had become
wholly incompatible. The Cuban people still had a long way to
go along the road to viable democracy, said Jorge. Democracy
cannot be imported from the United States or anywhere else and
great world areas are totally unsuited to democracy-parts of
Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where the god-king or tribal
chief rules. Stability is the essential requirement, said Jorge, and
in many countries it is the monarch alone who provides it. With
out a monarch these countries would be tom apart by personal
ambitions and the new social forces. He mentioned the chair
man-of-the-board type of European king, who presides over his
country without being its chief executive officer. He thOUght
that, after Franco, Spain would probably restore its royal house
in order to assure political stability.
The qualities which the Latins look for in a leader are at
times likely to conflict with the democratic restrictions imposed
upon him, said Jorge. Expected to be responsive to public pres
sures, he is also, as jete supremo, expected to be resolute and
skillful in putting an end to controversy. His duty, as the people
see it, is to get things done, bureaucracy notwithstanding. The
Latins admire firmness, power, and success. As an example of
leader-worship, my associate cited the fact that in Cuba it is
customary to refer to political groupings as Batistianos, Macha
distas, or Fidelistas, instead of naming the political parties which
the leaders head, and this is true of every Latin American coun
try. IA any case, he concluded, "we are what we are, so you will
have to be patient, Mario."
Jefferson Caffery left Havana in January 1937, and in June
Ambassador J. Butler Wright arrived to replace him. I had not
been close to Caffery and his staff, with the exception of Walter
J. Donnelly, the Commercial attache, who went on to a distin
guished career as Ambassador to Venezuela and High Com
missioner in Austria and West Germany. In Havana he already
displayed qualities that marked him as a Foreign Service officer
of exceptional qualifications.
Caffery; it seemed to me, was disloyal to Welles, who, as an
Assistant Secretary of State, had become his superior. As an
intermediary between himself and President Mendieta, Caffery
used a notorious Cuban rascal, smart, witty and completely un
scrupulous. He and the Ambassador had code names for well
known personalities in Cuba. On one occasion I heard him tele
phone the Ambassador and refer to Welles as "el caido," the
fallen one. When, as Caffery's spokesman at the Palace, the
emissary was instrumental in rendering a service to a company,
including American clients of our firm, there would often be a
subsequent shake-down. The party approached, on occasion,
would consult a member of the Embassy staff and, as the result
of a nod or silence, assume that a payment to the intermediary
had the Embassy's approval.
Prominent Cubans came to me to inquire whether the Ambas
sador was aware of his intermediary's record and reputation,
which of course he was. Eventually these incidents attained scan
dalous proportions, and Caffery arranged to have the man go to
Europe. Shortly before his departure, this character phoned me
at home one Saturday morning and reviled me from the Em
bassy. "I am sitting at the Ambassador's desk," he said, "and I
will soon be on my way out to shoot you." He was under the
mistaken impression that I had been responsible for his impend
ing exile. That afternoon our chauffeur, armed, followed our
golf foursome at a distance as we played. The same evening I
received a not altogether comforting apology from the Embassy.
Caffery served in Havana during a period of great tension and
crisis. More than any other American, he was responsible for
restoring order in Cuba, lending Batista the immense influence
of his office, at times even accompanying him on horseback on
visits to rural guard posts. This achievement therefore overshad
owed any shortcomings, and he is entitled to recognition for a
great service rendered to Cuba.
When Ambassador J. Butler Wright arrived in Havana, he
told me at our first meeting that the State Department had in
structed him to deal with the Cuban P'resident in normal fashion,
DAGGER IN THE HEART
through the Cuban Foreign Office. "We will not be cutting cor
ners," he said, "there will be no repetition of the past." Shortly
after this I was entrusted with negotiating the purchase for the
State Department of the land on which a new residence for the
American Ambassador would be constructed. The irreproach
able attitude of Ambassador Wright, popular and respected by
Cubans and Americans alike, restored prestige to the U.S. diplo
matic mission.
In late 1938 Colonel Batista was invited to attend the Armis
tice Day ceremonies in Washington as a guest of the War De
partment. There he saw snow for the first time and, with Presi
dent Roosevelt, reviewed West Point cadets at Arlington. When
he returned to Havana, entering the harbor on the gunboat Cuba,
he received a tumultuous popular welcome. Banks and commer
cial establishments closed in his honor and, as the guns of Ca
bana Fortress fired a salute, almost a hundred thousand people
lined the waterfront. Disembarking at Caballeria Wharf, he
walked almost a mile to the Presidential Palace between cheer
ing crowds held back by police, soldiers, and marines.
President Laredo Bru, the cabinet, and other high officials
were waiting to welcome him. From the Palace balcony he as
sured the cheering throng that as long as he had any influence
with the Cuban Government there would be a cordial relation
ship between Cuba and the United States. Whatever military or
economic cooperation Cuba could give the United States, he
said, would always be available to it.
CHAPTER SIX
Toward Democracy
Batista's decision to hold elections for a constitutional conven

tion in November 1939 greatly enhanced his popularity. For
the first time all political groups, including the recently legal
ized Communist Party, could openly debate methods to elimi
nate the political abuses of almost forty years of republican life.
One of the main objectives now would be to limit the domi
nance of the executive power built into the original 1901 Con
stitution and adopted under American pressure. The major op
position party, headed by Grau San Martin, would be strongly
represented in an arena where political decisions of the utmost
importance were to be made. The delegates would work in an
atmosphere of idealism, free from any outside pressure. The
country's best brains would engage in an effort to create a more
desirable society.
Dr. Grau San Martin presided over the Assembly's first ses
sions and was followed by my cousin, Dr. Carlos Marquez Ster
ling; they were both political opponents of Batista. Out of the
deliberations, extending over a period of several months, came
the now-famous Constitution of 1940, which Castro, while in
the mountains in 1957-1958, repeatedly vowed to respect. Its
importance today lies in the certainty that when the Communist
regime falls, the first succeeding government will restore it, for
the Cuban people attach great importance to this fundamental
law.
It provided for a system of semiparliamentary government
and took the form, in part, of statements of national goals, re
quiring subsequent implementation by legislation. Thus an au
tonomous Superior Electoral Court was to have final authority
in deciding electoral disputes, with power to instruct the armed
forces and police during elections. A Board of Public Offices
would regulate the Civil Service, the Constitution carefully de
fining and limiting the types of positions that could be considered
"political" and hence outside the civil service merit system. A
third autonomous agency, the Tribunal of Accounts, was to be
responsible for auditing all government accounts in order to
eliminate graft. The Constitution called for the organization of
a national bank of issue and rediscount. The size of large land
holdings, by both Cubans and foreigners, was to be reduced and
limited by law.
Of the 286 articles, 61 dealt with social and economic issues,
including the government's obligations to provide obligatory and
free education and to eradicate illiteracy. The section on labor
specifically incorporated much advanced legislation that had
been enacted between 1933 and 1940, including minimum
wages, a maximum day of 8 hours, a maximum week of 44
hours, and a month of paid vacations every year. Employers,
when hiring, were required to favor Cubans over aliens and,
when dismissing workers, to layoff foreigners first. They were
prohibited from dismissing workers except through government
controUed procedures and for a limited number of specified
causes, a provision which later created the most acute problem
faced by employers and came to be known as inamovilidad
(immobility). In 1959 the Castro regime went even further
by freezing all workers in their jobs, prohibiting all dis
missals for whatever cause, and taking over enterprises that
planned a reduction of personnel. (Once Castro had confiscated
the enterprises, however, workers were fired and wages cut in
discriminately. )
The three branches of government---executive, legislative,
and judicial-were maintained as in the American-imposed 1901
Constitution, with provisions designed to guarantee the inde
TOWARD DEMOCRACY 75
pendence of the judiciary. Executive power was vested in a
president elected for a four-year period; he could serve a sec
ond such term only after a lapse of eight years. To further limit
executive domination, the cabinet was made responsible to
Congress.
The individual rights granted by the new Constitution, such
as free speech and assembly and provisions against arbitrary
arrest, were similar to those guaranteed in 1901 but spelled out
in greater detail to prevent earlier abuses. To protect the citizen
from arbitrary police action, an arrested person had to be pre
sented to a judicial authority within seventy-two hours, and if
this was not done a writ of habeas corpus could be filed in his
behalf. The independent courts usually ordered such a person
released, and in times of public disturbance, when terrorists were
thus set free, the authority of the executive branch was weak
ened.
One of the important provisions restricted the president's right
to suspend these constitutional guarantees to cases of invasion
or serious public disturbances, and even then, this could be done
for only forty-five days, and the Congress was required to meet
within forty-eight hours to approve or reject the suspension.
Confiscation of property without adequate compensation fixed
by judicial authority was prohibited. So was the death penalty,
except in cases of treason or in the military establishment.
The 1940 Constitution, one of the most advanced documents
of its kind, marked a step of great significance in Cuba's prog
ress toward democracy, even though in practice it was never
funy applied or implemented. The government remained highly
centralized, with political appointment the most common source
of corruption. It continued to be difficult for an individual to
become a civil servant, a teacher, or a policeman without politi
cal patronage. Each of the three presidents between 1940 and
1952 (Batista, Grau San Martin, and Pdo Socarras) violated
constitutional provisions. Grau especially (1944-1948) openly
flaunted his disregard of constitutional restrictions. The govern
ment that came closest to conforming, providing by legislation
DAGGER IN THE HEART
four of the autonomous institutions called for in the Constitution,
was that of Carlos Pdo Socarras (1948-1952).
The next election date, July 1940, approached, and the candi
dates were Batista and Grau San Martin. Both conducted an
intense campaign, touring the country and addressing large
rallies everywhere. Slogans were coined, campaign songs com
posed, and posters exhibited in every town and Village. At mid
night before the eleotion, troops were ordered into quarters, and
the police took over the task of maintaining order. The polling
was orderly, and the election was regarded by impartial ob
servers as having been fair and virtually free from the usual
abuse of vote-buying. Colonel Batista won a sweeping triumph,
carrying his entire party to victory in both the Senate and the
House of Representatives. He had achieved his ambition to rule
as a constitutional president. There could be no doubt of his
popularity.
Yet within a few months there was a plot to overthrow him,
fomented by Colonel Jose Pedraza, Chief of Staff of the Army,
and Colonel Angel A. Gonzalez, Chief of Staff of the Navy. On
the night of February 3, 1941, Batista, dressed in a leather
jacket, dark trousers, and a white shirt open at the throat, went
to Camp Columbia, called together the colonels, and demanded
and received from them a pledge of loyalty. The two Chiefs of
Staff were arrested but permitted to leave Havana for Miami
the next day.
Two days after Pearl Harbor the Cuban Congress, at Ba
tista's request, joined the United States in the war against the
Axis powers. Ten days later, as an emergency war measure,
Congress made a sweeping delegation to the President of its
own powers, including authority to impose taxes, regulate trade,
industry, and labor, and make military pacts with the United
States and its allies. Batista thereby became the most powerful
President in Cuba's history and was in a position to extend to
the United States complete cooperation in the war effort. Within
a few days he raised all existing taxes and created new ones,
including the country's first income tax.
TOWARD DEMOCRACY 77
Following the lead of the United States, a concentration camp
was established, and the government began rounding up thou
sands of Japanese, Germans, and Italians. The entire 1942 sugar
crop, except for a small amount needed for local consumption,
was sold to the American Government at a price considerably
lower than what it would have brought in the open world mar
ket. Authority to control prices was given to Carlos Hevia, who
later became Minister of State, known by all to be honest and
upright. A former Minister of Agriculture, Amadeo Lopez Cas
tro, also widely respected for his probity, was appointed as liai
son with the American Embassy on sugar matters, and Dr. Car
los Saladrigas, the Prime Minister, who also enjoyed a good
reputation, as liaison on an airport development program.
With the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact the Cuban Commu
nists directed their attacks against the United States and its
allies, but after Germany invaded Russia in June 1941, they
shifted their position to a popular-front program and refrained
from criticizing the United States. Batista permitted them to
operate openly on the understanding that they would forego
violence in favor of peaceful tactics. In January 1943 they
adopted the name Partido Socialista Popular (PSP) and in
April 1943, with the Soviet Union an ally of the United States,
the Batista Government renewed diplomatic relations with the
U.S.S.R. The President appointed two well-known Communist
leaders to his cabinet. He gave official status to the powerful
Communist-controlled Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC),
which dominated labor throughout the country. Only later was it
learned that the PSP, during this period of its legal activity, had
kept an underground organization intact for use in insurrec
tional or infiltrating activities. in case its legal status was with
drawn.
I met with Batista frequently during his first administration.

My firm was handling the government relations, labor, and
legal work connected with war projects for the U.S. Govern
ment, including the fifteen-million-dollar San Antonio de los
Banos Air Base twenty-five miles south of Havana, with its
mile-long concrete runways. American heavy bombers made
training flights from northwestern United States to this base
prior to undertaking operations in the Pacific. To cope with
German U-boats, which had sunk hundreds of vessels in waters
within striking distance of Cuba, airports were expanded and
new ones constructed from which U.S. bombers could hunt
down their prey. A multi-mill ion-dollar nickel plant, financed
and owned by the United States Government, was to be con
structed in a jungle area of Eastern Cuba.
To carry out these emergency projects without delay, it was
essential that the normal labor law restrictions on daily and
weekly working hours be lifted, as the workers themselves de
sired, and that the thousands of necessary government permits
and licenses be processed with great rapidity. I asked Batista to
designate competent government officials who would be avail
able to us and have authority to solve with dispatch the myriad
problems requiring government action. This was done.
We requested tax exemptions of millions, representing savings
to the United States and a loss to Cuba, and they were granted.
When the problem arose as to how the United States should hold
title to the peninsula in Eastern Cuba on which the great Nicaro
Nickel plant would be built, Batista readily accepted my pro
posal that the property be acquired by a Cuban corporation, the
stock of which would be owned by an agency of the Washington
Government. In every instance my firm received from the Presi
dent immediate and cordial cooperation.
It was during this period that the accusation of dictatorship
was first raised, and Batista often spoke to me of democracy.
On one occasion, when a liberal American newspaper branded
him as a dictator, he remarked, smilingly, that at least he was
trying to be a "pro-American democratic dictator." I would re
call these experiences when, in 1958, the liberal Washington
policy-makers decided to oust the conservative, pro-American
Batista in favor of Fidel Castro.
As the constitution required the lapse of eight years before
TOWARD DEMOCRACY
a president could seek a second term, Batista did not run for
reelection in 1944. He backed Dr. Carlos Saladrigas, a tall,
slender, attractive, conservative lawyer who was devoid of
rabble-rousing talents. His opponent was Batista's old political
enemy, Dr. Grau San Martin. In the campaign Grau promised
a redistribution of wealth and the restoration of civil authority.
My wife voted for Grau, believing him to be honest and well
intentioned; my partner and I supported and worked hard for
Saladrigas. The election was honest and the leftist Grau won by
a handsome majority. Batista was commended on all sides for
having permitted his political opponent to be swept into office.
It was the first time in Cuban history that a government-sup
ported candidate had been defeated. Batista relinquished the
presidency amid praise and good wishes from the vast majority
of the public.
With the exception of Estrada Palma's administration, Cuba's
first, and generally regarded as the golden era of public admin
istration, there has always been some corruption in Cuban pub
lic life. The first years of Batista were certainly no exception.
Paradoxically, however, while the war projects with which we
were so intimately associated, involving a disbursement of $125
million, were totally free of graft so long as Batista remained in
power, there was corruption in Washington in connection with
one of these projects, corruption reaching into the White House
itself, although the American President was not personally in
volved. I
In the meantime, in May 1942 Ambassador Spruille Braden
had arrived on the scene. Vigorous, tough, forthright to the
point of bluntness, and a man of the highest principles, Braden
proved to be the antithesis of his predecessor. From the outset
he made it clear that shady or undercover transactions involving
American interests would not be countenanced. As the 1944
elections approached, he sternly and publicly warned Americans
1 Herbert Solow. "Who's Going to Clean up Nicaro?" Fortune, June,

1953, p. 108.
to keep clear of political involvement and to avoid campaign
contributions. Cuban politicians who sought to enrich themselves
in transactions involving American companies came into conflict
with Braden, and there were palace intrigues designed to discredit
the Ambassador. Relations between Batista and Braden, how
ever, remained of mutual respect.
There were high expectations when Grau took office, but
disillusionment followed within a few months. With the excep
tion of the Castro regime, which helped itself to virtually all
privately owned property, all Cubans agree that the administra
tion of leftist Professor Grau (1944-1948) was the most in
competent and corrupt in Cuban history.
This-and the digression seems in order here-should have
been a lesson for Washington policy-makers committed to the
doctrine that the so-called "non-Communist democratic Left" is
the cure for the political ills of Latin America. The lesson has
been ignored. Whenever a leftist professor in Latin America
shuffies from the lecture platform into the presidency of a coun
try, no matter how incompetent he may be, he receives the sup
port of the U.S. State Department and the open purse of the
monetary agencies under U.S. control. But right-wing military
men, no matter how able, who step in to save their country are
branded as dictators and, at best, given belated recognition,
along with oceans of abuse from the liberal press. Reliance on
Leftism as the best defense against Communism is the policy
line that dictated support of Sukarno, Nasser, Nkrumah, Bosch
-and Castro.
Grau began a shakeup of the army almost immediately, re
moving the commander of Camp Columbia and military chiefs
throughout the country, especially those who had been close to
Batista. Within a few months most of the officers who had sup
ported Batista were no longer members of the armed forces.
Grau fully exploited the tremendous patronage power at his
disposal. He gave the Communist-dominated Confederation of
Cuban Workers (CTC) $750,000 to build a Workers' Palace.
Revolutionary groups which had long been secret organizations
TOWARD DEMOCRACY 81
surfaced and moved in on the government ministries. Labor un
rest was intensified by struggles for union control between Com
munist and non-Communist leadership, and there was a decline
in public order.
Communists began gaining control of teacher associations in
order to spread their doctrine. Cuba became one of the focal
points of Communist propaganda in the Western Hemisphere.
Although there were few Russians residing in Cuba and no
Russian business or trade interests, the Soviets established an
oversized diplomatic mission in Havana, taking over a beautiful
mansion as a Legation, which entertained lavishly and at which
Moscow emissaries met with Latin American Communist lead
ers. Coining the word Cubanidad to denote a nationalistic
stance, with the close of World War II in 1945 Grau permitted
anti-American propaganda to get underway.
Under Grau the Ministry of Education became a prime
source of graft and patronage; the Minister, Jose Aleman,
ended up a multi-millionaire. It was under Grau's direction that
the Cayo Confites expedition was mounted against Trujillo and
the Dominican Republic. Fifteen hundred youths were recruited,
trained, and sent to a tiny, sandy island off eastern Cuba, from
which they were to embark. Some $2 million worth of ships,
planes, arms, and equipment had been accumulated there. When
the United States urged Grau to break up the expedition he or
dered the army and navy into action. They surrounded Cayo
Confites and captured 850 members of the expedition, confiscat
ing their ships, weapons, ammunition and 11 bombers. Fidel
Castro, then a student at Havana University, was in this group
but escaped by swimming to the Cuban mainland.
When the expedition failed, the Cuban Senate approved a
motion expressing lack of confidence in Aleman, who was in
Miami. He was reported to have stolen $60 million in bills
from the Treasury. When asked how he had taken the money
his answer was, "in suitcases." He died a few years later, leav
ing a huge fortune invested in Miami real estate. Grau himself
was later charged with misappropriating $174 mimon of gov
erument funds. On July 4, 1949, during the succeeding ad
ministration of Carlos Prio Socarras, who had been elected with
Grau's support, a group of gunmen invaded the court and stole
the entire record of the proceedings against Grau. The case
never came to trial; no one ever was arrested; and none of
the documents ever was found. Grau died in Havana in July
1969. Less than a hundred persons attended his funeral.
I had first met Prio, who was a lawyer, when he came to our
office in his shirtsleeves one day in 1943. representing a group
of laborers who had worked at the San Antonio de los Banos
Air Base, constructed in 1942-1943. The base had been built
by a New York contractor under a cost-plus wartime contract
for the V.S. Army and represented an investment of between
$15 and $20 million. The contractor had employed about 600
Americans and 11,000 Cubans. Article 62 of the 1940 Con
stitution called for "equal pay for the same kind of work," and
Prio argued that his clients had done the same kind of work
as Americans but received a lower wage. They had been carried
on the payroll under the same classifications as the Americans,
i.e. "carpenters," "truckdrivers," "foremen," "timekeepers,"
"crane operators," "assistant paymasters," etc. Prio, thirty-nine
or forty years of age, attractive and intelligent, presented his
case courteously and forcefully. It was interesting to talk to
him. He had spent several years in prison for revolutionary
activities against Machado and he had helped write the 1940
Constitution.
Our subsequent study disclosed Prio's claim to be of con
siderable importance, involving a possible liability of close to
$19 million, apart from the precedent that would be set in other
Latin American countries where war projects had been carried
out by the U.S. Government. At our second meeting with Prio
we rejected his claim.
This case was eventually tried before Chief Justice Byrnes of
the New York City Court, since the defendant was a New York
corporation, but it was defended by the V.S. Government,
TOWARD DEMOCRACY 83
which would have been liable for any recovery. My firm was
retained to work under the direction of the U.S. Attorney in
New York.
As our study developed we found it increasingly difficult to
enlist serious and intelligent collaboration on the part of the
United States Attorney's office in New York. Young men re
cently out of law school were assigned to the case and con
stantly changed. Several came to Havana on junkets without
giving more than passing attention to what should have been
the purpose of their visit. Finally we decided to resign as asso
ciate counsel, not wishing to be associated with a needless
failure.
Our resignation created a stir, and 1 was asked by Ellis O.
Briggs, an old friend, to come to Washington. Briggs had served
on the Braden staff in Havana as Counselor of Embassy and
was now an Assistant Secretary of State in Washington. One
of the best qualified Foreign Service officers of our generation,
he was later ambassador to seven nations by appointment of
three presidents. He grasped the problem instantly. Would we
continue our collaboration if jurisdiction of the case were trans
ferred to the Department of Justice, which would designate an
experienced and highly qualified lawyer to work with us? We
would; and under the direction of Marvin C. Taylor, a Harvard
lawyer of great capacity, the case was eventually tried in New
York in September 1949. The decision was in favor of the
United States Government.
President Grau appointed Prio Socarras as Minister of Labor

on April 30, 1947, and almost at once Prio moved to break the
hold of the Communists on the labor organizations. He ordered
them evicted from the Labor Palace, contending that the build
ing belonged to the Confederation of Cuban Workers. Eventu
ally he based his bid for the presidency largely on having de
stroyed Communist influence in Cuba. "We must remove their
masks and expose their aims of world domination," he said.
In 1946 the disillusionment of the Cuban people in their
government seemed to have found an outlet in a new leader,
Senator Eduardo Chibas, who organized the Ortodoxo Party
(Party of the Cuban People). His personal popularity stemmed
largely from weekly radio broadcasts in which he spared no
one implicated in graft. In the 1948 campaign he used a broom
as an electoral symbol and made a good showing, polling about
16 percent of the popular vote, nearly twice the party's regis
tration figure. But Carlos Pdo Socarras was elected President on
June 1, 1948, and in absentia, as he was then living in Day
tona Beach, Batista was elected a Senator.
Batista returned to Cuba on November 20, 1948, and estab
lished himself and his family at his country estate, known as
Kuquine, where soldiers were detailed to maintain a twenty
four-hour guard. It was from this beautiful estate that Batista
was to run for president again and eventually to stage the mil
itary coup which would once more put him in control of the
island.
Prio's government (1948-1952) enacted several construc

tive laws setting up institutions called for by the 1940 Constitu
tion; but the Cubans were to judge him harshly, since public
disorders continued and there were financial scandals. The
brightest period of the administration was the ten months dur
ing which Jose M. (Pepin) Bosch served as Minister of Fi
nance. Bosch, one of Cuba's most successful and respected in
dustrialists, had headed the renowned Bacardi Company. His
reputation for integrity was such that when he called on the
Cuban people to pay their taxes fully and promptly, there was
an astonishing response, unprecedented in Cuban history.
During this period the chief of the American diplomatic mis

sion in Cuba was perhaps the worst ambassador the United
States had ever had-anywhere. He has passed on now and a
veil may charitably be drawn over his shameful record. But his
appointment illustrates one of the weaknesses of the American
TOWARD DEMOCRACY 85
Foreign Service-the fact that about a third of the ambassa
dorial posts still go to non-professionals.
The diplomat who is an amateur works in an atmosphere that
is strange to him, with new and oddly shaped tools. The career
diplomat has a feel for his job and a skill which is acquired by
experience and cannot be acquired in any other way. Most of
the problems the career diplomat faces are of a pattern that has
been met and repeatedly solved in the past. Political appoint~
ments are usually made for the good of the nominee. Appoint
ments of career diplomats, with the exception to be noted, are
made for the good of the United States. The incumbent am
bassador whom the politically influential outsider "bumps" is
usually a competent career man.
This was what happened in Havana in 1948 when Am
bassador R. Henry Norweb was abruptly replaced by a grossly
incompetent amateur whose sole qualification was that he had
rendered a political service to President Truman. Harry Nor
web's performance throughout a long career had been impecca
ble. He and his wife, Emery May, a lady of culture and quality,
were loved by the entire Embassy staff and respected by Cubans
and Americans alike.
But experience in the career service is not the sole requisite
for a diplomat. As long as the cold war continues, in fact if not
in name, he should be of a conservative persuasion. R. Henry
Norweb was a conservative as well as a skilled professional. The
Cuban experience teaches, as will be explained in later chap
ters, that liberals are unable to assess and counter the Commu
nist threat. They only see enemies on the right. Late in the
Batista administration and early in the Castro regime the per
formance of a conservative non-professional ambassador proved
to be infinitely superior of that of a liberal career ambassador.
In the closing days of July 1951, I was visited at my home

late one night by Eduardo Chibas, known affectionately through
out the country as "Eddie," the most popular political figure in
.6 DAGGER IN THE HEART
Cuba at the time. His weekly Sunday evening radio broadcasts
were rated as having by far the highest audience of any program.
Eddie had been reared in a wealthy family but had given away
his inheritance little by little to friends in need. This generosity
had endeared him to the masses. His courage and eloquence
electrified the working class. Every Sunday evening at eight
o'clock a very large proportion of the Cuban population gathered
around radios in cities, villages, and isolated farms to hear the
familiar voice denounce the corruption of the Grau and Prio
administrations. The wealthy and more conservative people re~
garded ChibAs as a demagogue, a rabble-rouser. Some held him
to be mentally unbalanced because he had "squandered" his
wealth. By mid-1951 it was generally believed that he would
walk away with the presidency in the 1952 elections. I admired
him for his incorruptibility and unrelenting crusade for clean
government.
Shortly before coming to see me, Eddie had publicly accused
President Prio's Minister of Education of hiding stolen millions
in Guatemala, and he had been challenged to produce the evi
dence. During his weekly harangue two days earlier he had
promised to produce it the following Sunday. Now, having
heard in some way that I had knowledge of a secret trip Presi
dent Prio had made to Guatemala in a military plane, without
the constitutionally required consent of the Cuban Senate, he
had come to me for this vital information.
An attractive smile came over his tired face as we sat alone
in my living room that night. He had a fair complexion, was
short and stocky and scholarly in appearance. His glasses had
very thick lenses. Chibas began by saying that there were only
two ways that one could become president of Cuba. The first
was with money, to assure press support and to perfect a
political machine in every town and hamlet. He had no money,
however; his followers were the poor. He had not even been
able to pay for his Sunday evening radio time; the greatly re
spected Mestre brothers, owners of the broadcasting facilities,
TOWARD DEMOCRACY 87
had never pressed him for payment. The second way to reach
the palace, he explained, was by demagoguery and that was his
only choice. But he wanted to assure me that once he became
president he would follow a middle-of-the-road and pro-Ameri
can policy. He had never hidden his contempt for Communism.
"Tell me about Prio's trip to Guatemala," he then said, and.
gesturing as if to lift an armful of bundles from his lap and place
them in mine. "If I had a million dollars, Mario, I would give
them to you for this information. I am facing the greatest crisis
of my life."
Eddie's information was correct. Prio had made a secret and
unauthorized trip to Guatemala, but not in connection with
public funds stolen by his Minister of Education. The FBI had
spotted his arrival at the Guatemala airport and had reported to
the State Department in Washington that he was at the moment
closeted with the President of Guatemala. I told Eddie I could
not discuss the subject without violating a professional con
fidence and that he himself would think less of me if I did. He
lowered his head in dismay, slowly nodding affirmatively, and
said, "Yes, you are right, you are right."
But I also knew that Prio had been seen at the Guatemala
airport by persons whom former United States Ambassador
Braden described as "unimpeachable witnesses" and that Braden
had so reported to one of my neighbors. I offered to accom
pany Eddie to that neighbor's home, and it must have been
about three o'clock in the morning as we walked over. On the
way we talked. I asked Chibas what he thought of the behavior
of American private capital in Cuba. "If the Cubans did as
well," he said, "there would be no budgetary problem; this
country would be a paradise." The Americans obeyed the laws,
he said, including the rigid social and labor laws.
When we arrived, my neighbor, a respected American in
dustrialist, joined us on his terrace. He had been one of Am
bassador Braden's closest friends and agreed to telephone him
in New York. The next morning he called to say that Braden
was writing to one of Chibas' political associates and would
close his letter with, "By the way, I talked to friends in Guate
mala, who saw your Chief of State there," giving the date and
place.
When I passed this news to Eddie, he was elated. He was
certain that this word from a former American Ambassador
would be all he needed, that Prio would be subject to impeach
ment. My interest mounted as the time for the next Sunday
broadcast approached. When it started, however, it was at once
evident that the tone was entirely different from any previous
one. Absent were the denunciations of specific instances of
corruption. Instead, Eddie spoke calmly and in generalities,
imploring the Cuban people to insist upon a high moral code
of political conduct. Nothing was said about Prio. Eddie closed
his broadcast with, "This is my last plea; I am knocking at the
door for the last time, listen." And at that point he shot himself
through the stomach.
A great curtain of sorrow descended on the nation. Eddie
lingered for several days while hundreds prayed in the street
below his hospital window. He died on August 16, 1951, and
his funeral was one of the greatest mass demonstrations of
sympathy in Cuban history.
There was an ironical touch to the dramatic way he ended
his life. His broadcast had gone over the time limit and he was
off the air at the time he pulled the trigger. To this story, which
has been told repeatedly, I can add a footnote, a story that is
not known. The Braden letter that Eddie so desperately wanted
had been sent to Dr. Herminia Portel Vila, a close political as
sociate of Chibas. Unfortunately, it was addressed to him at the
Cuban-American Cultural Association, which had recently
moved its offices, and the letter remained undelivered. Had it
reached Portel Vila, Eddie Chibas probably would have become
President of Cuba in 1952. In that case Castro might never have
been heard of. He had joined Eddie Chibas' Ortodoxo Party
but got little encouragement there because Chi bas considered
TOWARD DEMOCRACY 89
him to be a gangster, under Communist influence, and not to be
trusted.
As the 1952 elections approached, the new Constitution had

been in effect for twelve years. Many of the institutions for
enforcing government responsibility had been created, and Cuba
was still prospering from the Korean War. The government's
pro-labor policy had produced strong labor support. Its point
of vulnerability was the widespread gangsterism, violence, and
corruption. There were three candidates for the presidency
Carlos Hevia, an Annapolis graduate, an honest man who had
Prio's support; Roberto Agramonte, who succeeded Eddie
Chibas as leader of the Ortodoxos; and Batista. Agramonte was
the strong favorite and Batista the least likely to win.
On March 10, 1952, an important date in Cuban history,
Batista, convinced that he would lose the election, engineered
a successful and almost bloodless coup d'etat. Having confided
in only a handful of supporters who were sworn to secrecy on
pain of death, and with army support, he seized Camp Colum
bia. One of his collaborators appeared at Cabana Fortress,
across the entrance of the harbor from Havana, and was imme
diately accepted as commander. In the interior other, younger
elements of the army took command. Pdo resigned as ordered,
and he left the country, making little effort to arouse his fol
lowers. Within two hours Batista had again made himself the
ruler of Cuba. Displaying his usual political skill, he responded
to the widespread discontent with gangsterism and graft by
promising order and an honest administration until elections
could be held. He temporarily suspended constitutional guar
antees, dissolved the political parties and Congress, prohibited
strikes, raised the pay of the army, and kept Congressmen on
salary.
I received news of the coup at about four in the morning,
barely an hour after it had occurred, from the wife of one of
my lawyers. Depressed and disheartened. I remember say
DAGGER IN THE HEART
ing, "This is a black day for Cuba. Batista is destroying the
Constitution he himself created, and he is certain to regret it."
Although the experience under Grau had been much worse than
under Batista, it appeared to me at 'the time that it was a tragedy
to interrupt the democratic process.
In retrospect, it is clear that Cuba had not achieved democracy
in 1952. The system had not worked, either in the American
form under the 1901 Constitution nor in a semipadiamentary
form under the Constitution of 1940. To be elected a Senator
during the Grau and Prio administrations, a candidate had to
spend approximately $250,000 and the salary for the term was
$96,000. A seat as Representative cost about $125,000 and the
salary during the four-year term was $48,000. The difference
had to come from somewhere, and since Congressmen enjoyed
padiamentary immunity they did not fear investigation. The pre
vailing idea, with many honorable exceptions of course, was that
polities was a spoils system. Few politicians regarded public of
fice as a public trust.
It should be remembered, however, that in 1952 Cuba as
a fully sovereign nation was only eighteen years old. In the
town where my wife and I now live there is a house that was
once occupied by Mark Twain. He once set down some words
about an all-American group of politicians who lived eighty
years after the American Constitution became effective. In
referring to Tammany Hall, Samuel Clemens said, "It had but
one principal, one policy, one moving spring of action-avarice,
money-lust. So that it got money it cared not a rap about the
means and methods. It was always ready to lie, forge, betray,
steal, swindle, cheat, rob; and no promise, no engagement, no
contract, no treaty made by its Boss was worth the paper it
was written on or the polluted breath that uttered it."
One of my most respected friends is Robert L. James, at
present Washington representative of the Bank of America. Dr.
James was one of our clients in Havana and formerly lived in
Chicago.
"My fellow Americans," he recently wrote me, "should re
TOWARD DEMOCRACY 91
alize that there was a striking similarity between the way Batista
ran Cuba and the manner in which, for many decades, the City
of Chicago was run by political bosses. Decent people in
Chicago tolerated a corrupt government in the same way that
the people of Cuba tolerated the Batista government. In both
cases they were left alone to pursue their private lives and their
business activities as they chose. The only Cubans who came
into conflict with the Batista government were the few who en
gaged in acts of terrorism. . . . Those of us who lived and
worked in ~uba in 1958 never had the feeling that we were
oppressed, and I never heard any Cuban express that sentiment."
Many Cubans came to regard democracy as a weak and
expensive form of government that did not necessarily produce
either stability or progress. While some of us strove and hoped
for a "real" democracy, others advocated increasing the power
of the central government as the best means of achieving large
scale socio-economic reforms. They justified concentration of
power as essential in order to bring about stability and a struc
ture in which democracy eventually could function. Some argued
that the most successful form of government in Latin America
was that of Mexico, which is a compromise between democracy
and dictatorship. The President of Mexico is elected under a
one-party system and rules as a dictator for six years, after
which he can never again be elected. He can do virtually any
thing he wants while in office. Of course, the single large party
contains elements of democracy.
In any case, on March 10, 1952 a large portion of the popu
lation welcomed the return to power of Batista. It welcomed
his announcement that, if the United States became involved
in a war with the U.S.S.R., Cuba would fight on the side of the
Americans. Business and industry were encouraged by his as
surance that he would keep order and his hint that he would
accede to its principal demand-a modification of labor regu
lations to permit an employer to dismiss a worker with sever
ance pay, a change never consummated because of opposition
from organized labor. Those most bitterly disappointed over
the coup, of course, were the candidates running on the Orto
doxo ticket, including the young radical, Fidel Castro, who
aspired to membership in the House of Representatives.
During the following two and a half, years Batista governed
as "Provisional President" under a fundamental decree that in
corporated most of the 1940 Constitution but omitted the sec
tions providing for representative government. The functions of
Congress were vested in the Cabinet, with an eighty-member
Advisory Council created to make suggestions on legislation.
On March 27, 1952, two weeks after the coup, the United
States recognized the Batista administration.
A week earlier two Soviet diplomats arriving in Cuba were
subjected to regular customs procedures, and the Soviet Union,
in protest, broke diplomatic relations with Cuba. During 1952
and 1953 Batista gradually moved against the Communists,
and on October 21, 1953, their party (PSP) was declared il
legal. Most of the known Communist leaders were arrested or
went into exile. The PSP, which then numbered approximately
150,000, was ordered by Moscow to go underground, reduce
its membership to a hard core of the faithful, and await future
instructions. 2
The major achievements of Batista's second period of rule
included the building of a good water system for Havana (some
thing which political leaders had promised the people for gen
erations) and other public works. He created a Sugar Stabiliza
tion Fund to prevent economic collapse after the end of the
Korean War. The early 1950s were relatively prosperous years,
and once again, in 1954, Batista attempted to legalize his posi
tion by holding popular elections. Grau San Martin was again
the opposition candidate but he withdrew before the election,
claiming that Batista would prevent a fair vote. Under these cir
cumstances Batista was unanimously elected. He was inaugu
rated on February 25, 1955, before a packed assembly of diplo
2 R. Hart Phillips, Cuba: Island 01 Paradox (New York: McDowell,

Obolensky, Inc., 1964), p. 263.
TOWARD DEMOCRACY 93
mats, congressmen, government officials, and high-ranking mili
tary officers, while a huge crowd cheered outside the Palace.
In May 1955 Batista felt sufficiently secure to declare a
broad amnesty of political prisoners, releasing hundreds of his
enemies, while others, including Prio Socarras, returned from
exile. Among those amnestied were Fidel and Raul Castro.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Facts and Fallacies
The day before President Kennedy was assassinated, Fidel Cas

tro spent several hours in a Havana hotel room being inter
viewed by French journalist Jean Daniel. This, however, was
no ordinary interview. Less than a month before, Daniel had
met with President Kennedy in Washington and the President
had given him an "off-the-record" message for Castro. Much of
the discussion in the hotel room concerned that message.
"I think," the President had said for Castro's benefit, "that
there is not a country in the world, including all the regions of
Africa and including any country under colonial domination,
where the economic colonization, the humiliation, the exploita
tion have been worse than those which ravaged Cuba, the re
sult, in part, of the policy of my country, during the regime of
Batista. I think that we spawned, constructed, entirely fabri
cated without knowing it, the Castro movement. I think that the
accumulation of such errors has endangered all of Latin Amer
ica ... I will tell you something else: In a certain sense, it is as
though Batista were the incarnation of some of the sin"s commit
ted by the United States. Now, we must pay for those sins ...." 1
Castro listened to this statement with nervous amazement.
Daniel reports that he twisted his beard, pulled at his beret, and
1 The New York Times, December 11, 1963, p. 16. Substantially the
same account of President Kennedy's statement to Jean Daniel appeared
in Eye on Cuba, by Edwin Tetlow (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World,
Inc., 1966), pp. 199, 200.
FACTS AND FALLACIES
kept adjusting his jacket as it was read. Then, unbelieving, he
asked the journalist to read it again. And again a third time.
Later in the interview Castro paid a glowing tribute to Pres
ident Kennedy: "He still has the possibility of becoming the
greatest President of the United States." 2
After the tragedy in Dallas on November 22 Jean Daniel
decided that the death of the President voided the confidential
nature of his interview at the White House. The New York
Times published the story of the private message on December
11, 1963, and a detailed account appeared in the New Republic,
December 14, 1963. Thus it became known that the President
had held the astonishing belief that Cuba before Castro not only
was the victim of the most ruthless colonial exploitation in all
history but that the United States was to blame and must atone
for these "sins."
This shocking disclosure once more reminded me and others
close to Cuban affairs of the abysmal ignorance in the United
States with respect to Cuba, even in the highest official circles.
I was in Cuba in 1960 when the new regime confiscated
almost a billion dollars in American-owned property. I either
heard or read all of Castro's pronouncements attempting to jus
tify that outrage. His tirades were no stronger, and no more war
ranted, than was President Kennedy's confidential message to
him in 1963. Small wonder that on hearing it Castro excitedly
voiced his gratification, exclaiming that Kennedy might become
"an even greater President than Lincoln," 3 and that "anyone
else would be worse"-for Castro, of course.
Perhaps the President's views on the supposed American sins
in relation to Cuba were more extreme than those of most
Americans. Unfortunately, however, I have found these woe
ful misconceptions about social and economic conditions on
the island just before the Castro take-over, and of American
responsibility for the evils, widespread. This is particuarly
2 The New York Times, December 11, 1963, p. 16.
a Ibid., p. 16.
DAGGER IN THE HEART

true in liberal circles, where pre-Castro Cuba is depicted in
blackest hues as a country in which a wealthy few exploited
illiterate and poverty-stricken masses; where large farms were
becoming larger, with the little farmer on the way out; where
American corporations helped drain the economy they domi
nated for the benefit of their stockholders at home; and where a
bestial dictator ruled this complex of social injustice.
I once encountered the same stereotyped thinking about Cuba
in talking to Eleanor Roosevelt, who felt that the Cubans were
so hopelessly mired in poverty that "perhaps a Socialist gov
ernment would,be the best solution for them." The liberal Co
lumbia University professor C. Wright Mills, after visiting Cuba
in 1959-1960, concluded that the revolution had been a "peas
ant uprising," provoked by unbearable poverty and despair in a
miserably underdeveloped country.
Myths of this sort, of course, have been so massively rein
forced by Havana's propaganda since the takeover that they
are treated uncritically as fact even by some self-styled experts
and journalists who should know better. They are exploited to
the limit to put Americans on the psychological defensive.
What are the realities behind the myths?

Although Cuba lived under the blight of Spanish colonial
rule seventy-six years longer than any other country in Latin
America, by the 1950s, in the incredibly short span of half a
century, it had attained the highest standard of living of any
semi-tropical or tropical country in the world, except possibly
for Venezuela. According to a U.S. Department of Commerce
report, Cuban national income in 1956 had reached levels
which gave the Cuban people "one of the highest standards of
living in Latin America." 4 The Economic and Technical Mis
sion of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Devel
opment stated in its Report on Cuba, 1951: "The general im
4 U. S. Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba (Washington,

D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1956). p. 184.
FACTS AND FALLACIES 97
pression of members of the Mission, from observations in travel
all over Cuba, is that living levels of the farmers, agricultural
laborers, industrial workers, storekeepers, and others are higher
all along the line than for corresponding groups in other tropical
countries and in nearly all other Latin American countries. This
does not mean that there is no dire poverty in Cuba, but simply
that in comparative terms Cubans are better off, on the average,
than people of these other areas." This statement, written in
1951, summarizes equally well the situation in 1956. 5 Cuba's
transportation system and domestic markets were the most
highly developed in Latin America. 6 In 1956 Cuba had three
times the U.S. railway mileage per square mile of area. 7
In 1958 even unskilled labor received as much as six and
seven dollars a day. Cuban labor laws, rigidly enforced, were
more advanced in almost every respect than those prevailing in
the United States. They included, for instance, one month of
paid vacation for every worker, minimum wages, an 8-hour day
with time-and-a-half pay for overtime, a 44-hour week with 48
hours of pay, social security, maternity and accident benefits,
and the provision that no worker could be dismissed from his
job except for a limited number of proven causes. The Cuban
Confederation of Workers, according to the American CIO,
had attained a much higher numerical degree of organization in
proportion to population than the labor movement in the
United States. s
Agricultural workers, too, were well paid. According to statis
tics published in 1960 by the International Labor Organization
5 Ibid., p. 184.
6 Wyatt MacGaffey and Clifford R. Barnett, Twentieth Century Cuba,
prepared under the auspices of The American University (New York:
Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1965), pp. 101, 103.
7 U. S. Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba, p. 22.
8 Ernest Schwartz, "Some Observations on Labor Organization in the
Caribbean" in The Caribbean: Its Economy (Gainesville, Florida: Uni
versity of Florida Press, 1954), p. 167. In 1954 Ernest Schwartz was the
Executive Secretary of the Committee on Latin American Affairs of the
CIO.
DAGGER IN THE HEART
in Geneva, the average wage in 1958 for an 8-hour day was
$3. When adjusted to compensate for the differences in pur
chasing power, this compared with $2.70 for Belgium, $2.86
for Denmark, $1.74 for France, $2.73 for West Germany and
$4.06 for the United States. The same ILO statistics showed
that the Cuban workers received 66.6% of the gross national
income, compared to 57.2% for Argentina, 47.9% for Brazil,
and 70.1 % for the United States.
During the 1960 presidential campaign Senator John F.
Kennedy stated in a Cincinnati speech that American companies
dominated the Cuban economy. Here too, as in his subsequent
interview with Daniel, he was repeating a widely held miscon
ception. The fact is that in 1958 only 5 % of the invested capi
tal in Cuba was American,\} and out of a working force of about
two million, only seventy-odd thousand were full-time em
ployees of American companies. 10
What about the common belief that Cuba was a country of

mammoth land holdings, with the landowners a privileged
class virtually above the law?
In the first place, it is a good logic that agrarian reform
should be related to the problem of food production, especially
in areas such as Latin America that are experiencing one of the
world's highest population increases. The growing of food is
clearly a most important enterprise in any country. If small
land holdings produce more food, the laws should aim at a
break-up of latifundia (large land holdings). But small farms
do not always produce more food. This has been demonstrated,
for example, in the Belgian Congo, where the natives seized the
splendid farms slowly developed through the years by the toil,
9 Jose R. Alvarez Diaz, Trayectoria de Castro: encumbramiento y

derrumbe (Miami: Editorial A.I.P., 1964), p. 11.
10 U. S. Department of Commerce, U. S. Investments in the Latin
American Economy (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office,
1957), p. 75.
FACTS AND FALLACIES
knowledge, and capital of Europeans and broke them up into
scraggly plots for the raising of yams, scarcely able to sustain
human life.
In the United States the trend nowadays is toward fewer,
larger, and more mechanized farms. Most Cubans, by contrast,
felt that smaller farms were desirable, and the Cuban laws
strongly favored the small sugar cane farmer. Although statistics
of this kind can be misleading, the U.S. Department of Com
merce reported that in 1946 the average size of Cuban farms
was 140 acres,l1 as against 195 in the United States in 1945. 12
While the average size of the Cuban farm decreased during the
fifteen-year period 1931-1946 from 188 to 140 acres, that is,
by 25.5%,13 it increased during the nineteen-year period 1940
1959 in the United States by 73.5%.14 At the same time there
was a marked trend in Cuba away from American ownership
and toward Cuban ownership of sugar mills. In 1958, for in
stance, Cuban-owned mills accounted for about 62 % of the
total sugar output, compared to only 22% in 1939. 15 U.S. con
trol of the Cuban sugar industry declined from about 70% in
1928 to about 35% in 1958. 16
Most of the cane in Cuba was grown by c%nos, individuals
who either rented from the sugar mills or depended upon the
mill to buy their cane. The rest of the cane, called "administra
tion cane," was produced by the mill itself with hired labor. In
1944 only 10 percent of the crop was administration cane. This
low proportion was the result of a sugar quota law in 1937 that
allotted larger quotas to c%nos, favoring the small farmer.

12 U. S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United
States, 1962 (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office,
1962), p. 610.
14 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1962.
16Theodore Draper, Castroism: Theory and Practice (New York:
Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), p. 109.

1" DAGGER IN THE HEART
Many mills thereupon gave up producing their cane and leased
all their lands to farmers at low rents, tied by law to the price of
sugar.
The task of cutting cane during the annual crop is entirely
manual. Cane-cutting machinery has been tried but none has
been found to be as efficient as hand labor. Experimental ma
chines built for the Castro regime by the U.S.S.R. have been a
failure.
The 1937 Law for Sugar Coordination, which remained in
effect through 1958, established minimum wages, production
quotas, prices for grinding cane, and, as explained, low rent
ceilings based on the value of sugar. The quotas given to the
small farmers were taken away from the large growers and the
small farmers were guaranteed against eviction so long as they
produced their quota of cane. The 1940 Constitution went even
further, calling for the breakup of the remaining large land
holdings and the elimination of foreign influence in agricultural
affairs.
Batista's final period in power lasted almost seven years, from

March 10, 1952 until December 31, 1958. The first five were
peaceful and the sixth relatively so. They were years of expand
ing prosperity, culminating, in 1957, with the most prosperous
year in Cuban history. As rebel activities mounted toward the
end of 1958 the economy deteriorated sharply, and Batista
contributed to the decline of the economy and his own down
fall by failing to hold free and honest elections in 1958.
On the positive side, however, in 1954 Batista instituted a
long-range Economic and Social Development Plan, by far the
most ambitious ever formulated in Cuba. It called for an ex
penditure of $350 million over an initial four-year period. In its
agricultural sector it called for immediate improvements in stor
age and refrigeration facilities, increased mechanization, fertili
zation and irrigation, and intensified research by agricultural ex
perimental stations.
To reduce further the perils of a one-crop economy, it pro
FACI'S AND FALLACIES 101
posed more production of meat, milk, fowl, eggs, fish, rice,
beans, fruit, vegetables, and coffee. On the social side the pro
gram called for agrarian reform, including technical economic
assistance to Small farmers through agricultural cooperatives
and trade and credit organizations. This ambitious program had
counterparts in industry and trade, offering tax incentives and
credits to private investors. Although it never had a chance to
prove itself completely, since many of the measures were of a
long-term nature and the Castro rebellion disrupted their oper
ation, the early results were spectacular.
Per capita income figures, although considerably lower than
in the United States, rose to the second highest level in Latin
America in 1957.17 The middle-income group expanded until
it also became one of the largest in Latin America, estimated
at between one-fifth and one-third of the population-a remark
able achievement. IS Between mid-1952 and mid-1957 savings
and fixed-term deposits in banks jumped from $140 million to
$385.5 million. 19
Real estate had always been the preferred form of investment
in Cuba, and in 1953 a vast and astonishing building boom got
under way. It spread throughout the island. In Havana new
hotels and scores of apartment houses changed the skyline. New
streets were paved, old streets were patched, and all the famous
Havana restaurants were redecorated and air-conditioned. At
the Plaza Civica, surrounding the monument of Jose Marti, a
huge wheel of beautiful government buildings, projected and in
itiated by Prio Socarras, were completed. When Batista took
over in 1952, private construction totaled $53 million annually
and public construction $76 million. By 1957 the corresponding
figures were $77 million and $195 million. 20 A tunnel was built
under the entrance of Havana harbor, leading to the magnificent
scenic highway to Matanzas along the north coast.
17 Ibid.,p. 98.
ISlbid., p. 78.
19 MacGaffey and Barnett, Twentieth Century Cuba, p. 225.
20 Ibid., p. 100.

The expansion in the industrial sector during this period was
phenomenal. Three new refineries for processing imported crude
oil were constructed, giving Cuba an export balance of gasoline
for the first time. Two new tire installations and the expansion
of a third more than doubled the 1956 production of automo
bile tires. A new copper-wire drawing mill was built, capable
almost by itself of filling the country's copper wire needs. A
cast-iron water pipe factory placed Cuba in an export position
for this product. In 1957 five new paper and paperboard man
ufacturing plants using baggase (a byproduct of sugar) as a
raw material were either being built or in the planning stage.
Owens-Illinois built a plant with sufficient capacity to provide
Cuba with all the glass containers it needed. Reynolds Alumi
num erected a plant to produce aluminum foil and packaging.
Water works were provided for several cities, roads and high
ways were built, and exploration for oil was undertaken.
It was during this period that my firm undertook the legal

and government-relations work involved in the construction of
a second nickel and cobalt plant in Eastern Cuba that, when
completed, was to be the largest producer of nickel in the free
world and the largest producer of cobalt in the Western Hemi
sphere. This project represented an investment of $115 million.
When Castro came to power the plant was dismantled and can
nibalized. As in the case of the United States Government
owned Nicaro Nickel project this great installation had ad
vanced almost to the point of completion without a trace of
graft in Cuba, not a dollar having been either demanded or
paid.
These were only a few of the more important construction
projects, which provided jobs for scores of thousands of un
skilled and skilled workers during the boom years of 1954
1957. When Castro seized power in 1959 the building industry
collapsed overnight; all the construction workers were thrown
out of work.
The funds to carry out Batista's Economic and Social Devel
I \.. •. /

opment Plan came from private Cuban sources, from several
government banks, and from private American interests. Amer
ican investments had been chiefly responsible for making Cuban
industry the most heavily capitalized (relative to population) in
Latin America. From 1938 to 1958 the Cuban record for ser
vicing its foreign debt was spotless, and by 1950 Cuban cur
rency had become among the hardest in the world. 21
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Cuban
Government's revenues for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1957,
reached an all-time high of $370.8 million, showing a budgetary
surplus of $12.9 million. For the fiscal year ending June 30,
1958, according to the same source, although revenues had
dropped to $359.9 million, the budgetary surplus stood at $29.8
million.
I believed for many years that the development of tourist

travel to Cuba would benefit the country in every way, and, in
fact, my partner and I were responsible for the construction of
the 32-story $24 million Havana-Hilton Hotel, the finest struc
ture of its kind in Latin America at the time. But later I came
to change my mind about this. Although tourism helped to
some extent to maintain a favorable international balance of
payments, it directly benefited only an infinitesimally small seg
ment of the population, mainly hotel and restaurant workers,
taxi drivers, and entertainers, and it hurt Cuba in almost every
other way. The tourist facilities were not of the healthful, recre
ational kind, such as public beaches and golf courses, that at
tract the most desirable visitor; some were plainly tourist
"traps."
Very few of our visitors ever saw the real Cuba. Even those
who had Cuban friends seldom saw the inside of a Cuban home,
because social visiting in the home is limited by custom chiefly
to relatives and intimate friends. I am sure it did not occur to
many of them that, as Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, has
21 Ibid., p. 228.
1M DAGGER IN THE HEART
written in Emblems of a Season of Fury, we might have a life,
a spirit and a culture of our own, something irreplaceable that
cannot be bought with money. They probably imagined, said
Merton, that all Latin Americans live for the siesta and spend
their days and nights playing the guitar and making love. "How
could they possibly know," he asked, "that Latin America is
by and large culturally superior to the United States, not only
on the level of the wealthy minority which has absorbed most of
the sophistication of Europe, but also among the desperately
poor indigenous cultures [those of the Inca and Maya Indians],
some of which are rooted in a past that has never been sur
passed on this continent."
The typical visitor had little rapport with the human beings
on the island. He arrived with his camera, exposure meter, and
sunglasses and gazed in every direction without seeing what was
there. In some cases he saw things that were not there. Can
anything be more spurious than the cosmopolitanism of Pro
fessor Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who left Havana after a brief
visit in 1950 with the preposterous notion that the city "was
being debased into a giant casino and brothel for American
businessmen over for a big weekend from Miami"? 22
Again, what are the facts?
In 1950 Greater Havana, with a population of close to one
million, had three gambling casinos, which were adjuncts of
restaurants offering dancing and entertainment facilities. When
the new tourist hotels were erected during the great building
boom of the late 1950s, four or five additional casinos were
authorized. Few of the Cubans who patronized the night clubs
or hotels entered the gambling rooms. On the few occasions that
I visited the casinos with American tourists during the nearly
forty years of my residence in Cuba, I do not recall ever having
run into any member of my large office staff there. Casinos were
an American institution, alien to Cuban life, operated by
22Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (Boston: Houghton

FACI'S AND FALLACIES 105
Americans for Americans. And, of course, there was no more
prostitution in Havana than in any American city of comparable
size.
Although education for all had been one of the slogans of the
leaders of the War of Independence in 1898 and the principle
of free and compulsory schooling had been established as eady
as the 1901 Constitution, the number of persons aged ten or
older able to read and write was only a little over 70 percent in
1933 when Batista first came to power.23 It was lower than
this in rural areas and higher in urban areas. Batista's original
program called for use of the army to extend education to re
mote rural districts, where schools were constructed and teach
ers given the rank of sergeant. At that time there were few
public vocational schools but their number had increased enor
mously by mid-century, especially the polytechnic schools,
which supplied tuition, lodging, food, and sometimes even
clothing to the pupils, free of charge. 24 The number of general
secondary schools more than tripled during the Batista era.
They included agricultural schools in everyone of the six prov
inces; these owned their own land and livestock and were ade
quately equipped. Admission was by competition but limited to
children of farm families. 25 The three-year program led to a
certificate of Master Farmer.
At the time of the Sergeants' Revolt in 1933 the strongest
advocates of educational reform were the student and intellec
tual followers of Professor Grau San Martin, but shortly after
Grau had become President in 1944 the Ministry of Education
became a center of wholesale graft that, by the end of his term,
had become a national scandal: During the Grau administration
the sale of teaching appointments became a common practice
and teachers, who were civil servants and had a life tenure, were
23MacGaffey and Barnett, Twentieth Century Cuba, p. 190 .
24lbid., p. 193.
26lbid., p. 194.
I I
DAGGER IN THE HEART

paid whether they taught or not. Professor Grau's Minister of
Education made a fortune of several millions.
By the mid-1950s, however, these conditions had been vir
tually eliminated. There were 25,000 teachers in the public
school system and 3,500 in the nearly 900 officially recognized
private schools. There were three state-controlled universities,
with a total enrollment of about 20,000. The private schools
alone, including three private universities, had an enrollment of
more than 100,000. In education and literacy Cuba ranked at
or near the top among Latin American countries. It ranked first
in the percentage of national income invested in education. 26
American and Cuban authorities in the education field agree
that it was less expensive and easier to obtain a college educa
tion in Cuba than in the United States.
In the welfare field Cuba was notably advanced. It had huge

centros, or clubs, with memberships ranging from 10,000 to as
high as 90,000; these maintained schools, homes for the aged,
and some of the finest hospitals in the country. For a monthly
fee of three dollars a member was entitled to free medical
treatment for himself and his family, as well as the use of the
clubs' educational and recreational facilities. Also, there were a
great number and variety of pension and retirement funds (so
cial security) affording protection against old age and disability.
By 1950 they covered approximately half the working popula
tion. In addition to the benefits provided for the insured, pen
sions were usually provided for widows, unmarried daughters,
and underage dependents of those who died. These funds were
financed by the insured, the employers, and the state. During
the Grau and Pdo administrations, however, many of the retire
ment funds met with financial difficulty and had to cut back al
26 Article 52 of the 1940 Constitution attested to the importance at

tached to popular education. It provided that the Ministry of Education
budget should not be less than the ordinary budget of any other Ministry
and that a teacher's monthly salary should not be less than one-milliontb
of the annual national budget.
lowances and pensions when the government "borrowed" mil
lions from the trusts without ever publicly acknowledging the
fact or obtaining the consent of the fund administrators.
In the field of public health Cuba surpassed the United States

in some respects. It had almost twice as many physicians and
surgeons in relation to population (and twice as many teach~
ers) 27 and it had a lower mortality index, among both adults
and infants. Its annual death rate of only 15 per 1,000 persons
was unusually low. Before Castro assumed power its food sup~
ply was abundant, and a United States Government report de~
scribed the Cubans as "among the better fed people of the
world." 28 The country was relatively disease~free. Malarial in
fection, for example, had fallen to 2.1 cases per 100,000 of popu~
lation, and there had been no epidemics of any sort since the in
fluenza experience during World War I. Cuba had a higher pro
portion of doctors and dentists, including some of the world's
best, than any other country in the Caribbean area.
Until Castro came on the scene the people of Cuba had all
the necessities of life and they were getting an increasing mea
sure of luxuries. Cuba had one radio for every 5 inhabitants,
one television set for every 20, one automobile for every 27,
and one telephone for every 28.
Ironically, one element of Cuba's former prosperity inherited
by Castro helps him retain his hold on the people. No other
nation except the United States had as many television sets per
capita as Cuba. By comparison, Soviet Russia has one set per
thousand inhabitants and China has only one set per ten thou~
sand. For a person with Castro's talents for acting and oratory,
the medium is made to order, and he has used it with the ut~
most effectiveness.
27U. S. Department of Commerce, Investment in Cuba, p. 183.

28Economic Research Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Agriculture and Food Situation in Cuba (Washington, D. C.: U. S.
Government Printing Office, 1926), p. 2.
118 DAGGER IN 'I1IE HEART
Such then was th!! extraordinary progress made by Cuba
during the pre-Kennedy and pre-Castro era. Far from having
been "exploited" or "humiliated" by the United States, the
exact opposite had been the case. Following the Spanish-Amer
ican War, the United States rejected Spain's suggestion that the
U.S. annex Cuba. For many years it bought Cuban sugar at
considerably above world market prices. And, most important
of all, except for the native intelligence and industry of the
Cuban people themselves, American private capital and Ameri
can know-how were the principal contributing factors in mak
ing Cuba the most industrialized country of Latin America in
ratio to population, and in raising its living standard to one of
the highest.
I believe I am in as good a position as any living man to
evaluate the performance of American business and industry
in Cuba, as my firm represented almost a third of the American
investment there. With strikingly rare exceptions American par
ticipation was benevolent and highly beneficial. During the last
ten years of my residence there I obtained jobs for more than
a thousand Cubans and in virtually every case the applicant
sought employment with an American company. Why? Because
the Americans treated their employees generously and fairly,
adhered to the rigid labor and social laws, paid their taxes, and
didn't cut corners. The contribution of American private capi
tal to the Cuban economy was enormous.
I know of no "sin" that can be ascribed to the United States
in its treatment of Cuba prior to 1958. But I know of grievous
sins that came later, especially during the thousand days of the
Kennedy administration, when all the progress of the previous
sixty years was wiped out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Castro's Early Days
The Civil Code of Napoleon Bonaparte, which is the basic law

of Cuba, says that children are obligated to respect and aid their
parents, and parents are obligated to support and educate their
children, even if they were not married when the children were
conceived. Every Cuban family abides by these rules as a matter
of course. The family is by far Cuba's most important institu
tion, and these mutual obligations have been ingrained in the
Latin character through the centuries.
So great is the degree of filial and parental devotion that at
times it becomes a weakness. Unworthy parents retain the
affection of children, who, in tum, are pampered. But, in gen
eral, strong family unity and devotion adds a warmth to Cuban
life that is rarely equaled elsewhere.
The Castros were no exception to this basic rule. While far
from an ideal family, they were closely knit and got along well
enough together, although there are many published reports to
the contrary. Some of the stories that purport to tell of the re
lations between Fidel Castro and his father border on the fan
tastic. They tell of a smoldering hatred between them that 0c
casionally erupted into violence. According to one account,
when Fidel was only nine or ten years old he set fire to a cane
field owned by the family and his father threatened to shoot
him. Supposedly his mother intervened and got him out of
harm's way by sending him to Colegio Dolores, a Jesuit School
in Santiago de Cuba. Another tale has it that he once publicly
denounced his father for employing Haitians to cut cane and
that once again the father threatened to kill the boy.
These stories are not true and others concerning Angel Cas
tro, the father, are equally false. It has been claimed that he
came to Cuba with the Spanish army in or shortly before 1898
and developed a passionate hatred of Americans while fighting
against them and the Cuban Army of Independence. It has been
said that his violent diatribes against the Americans instilled in
Fidel the hatred he later showed for the United States. Angel
Castro did indeed come to Cuba shortly before the turn of the
century and, like most Spaniards at the time, may well have
had no love for Americans, but friends of mine who knew Angel
Castro well scoff at the idea that he participated in the fighting.
However, the elder Castro was anything but an admirable
character, one indication of which is that Fidel is an illegiti
mate child, born in his father's house in Biran, in the Eastern
Province of Oriente, on August 13, 1926. Cubans attach little
stigma to common law marriages, but they condemn bigamy,
and Fidel was the product of a bigamous union between Angel
and a servant in his household.
Angel Castro was an illiterate, stolid GaIician peasant. He
came to Cuba with nothing and left an estate that was worth
more than a half-million dollars when he died in 1956 at the
age of eighty-six. He built the base of this fortune honestly
enough, working on the properties of my client, the United Fruit
Company. from 1904 to 1918. He was first a pick-and-shovel
laborer, working on railroad construction, then digging drainage
ditches for the cane areas. Finally he helped build small, low
bridges across creeks and streams. Physically he was a good
specimen, hardy and strong, and, like most Gallegos, he saved
his money. Usually he went about barefooted, and when he wore
shoes they were made of canvas.
One of the legends about Angel Castro, widely circulated by
an American columnist, was that he had been fired by the
United Fruit Company for theft of sugar from the company over
CASTRO'S EARLY DAYS 111
1
a period of years. According to this account, the company
started legal proceedings against him but the suit was dropped
for lack of witnesses. This, the columnist surmised, was why
Fidel had such a phobia against Americans. The truth is that
the United Fruit Company never had any trouble with Angel.
He and the company's overseers often hunted guineas and other
game together, and sometimes the young, barefoot Fidel would
be taken along to carry the birds.
Angel Castro did get into serious trouble with another com
pany, which may have been the origin of the columnist's dis
torted version that appeared in many American newspapers. In
the mid-1920s Angel was in business as an oxcart contractor,
hauling sugar in Alto Cedro, where large warehouses of the
West Indies Sugar Company were located. In league with one
of the night watchmen, a plan was devised to steal bags of
sugar, and these were systematically carted off to Castro's farm
in Biran by one of his ca"eteros, a man named Francisco Cal
derin, alias Virulilla. The company learned about the thefts and
Virulilla was caught and took the blame. He was sentenced to
several years in jail. Angel Castro spent considerable money on
Virulilla's defense and after his "fall guy" had been imprisoned
for some time he was able to get him pardoned.
This story is in character. Cubans who knew Angel personally
considered him a scoundrel who had no qualms about cheating
if he thought he could get away with it. His cane scales were
always way off in his own favor. His boundary fences would
frequently be moved out over a neighbor's land, and cattle and
other property belonging to a neighbor would often end up on
Angel's side of the fences-if the old man thOUght he was not
likely to be caught.
These sharp practices certainly helped build the fortune he
left when he died, but most of his money was made legitimately.
With what he earned working for the United Fruit Company
1 Drew Pearson, "Washington Merry-Go-Round," February 28, 1961.

he built a few shacks and bought a restaurant in the small town
of Guaro, and these he sold to the Company in 1920 for five
thousand dollars. The Company also bought wood from Castro,
logged from the hills and delivered to its cane switches, but
these purchases were discontinued when it discovered that Cas
tro was cutting timber illegally in government forests adjacent
to his farm.
Angel Castro was only one of thousands of men employed
by sugar mills in the area where he lived, and it is difficult to
obtain a precise record of his activities over the years. However,
it is known that in the main his fortune came from growing
sugar cane during a period when it commanded very high prices.
He married a former schoolteacher, Marla Argeta, from
Banes, around 1907. She was a mulata with whom he had two
children, Pedro Emilio and Lidia. As he prospered, the Castros
brought to their house a Cuban servant girl named Lina Ruz
Gonzales, and within a short time Angel seduced her. This
broke up the marriage; there was a separation and Marfa took
the two children with her to Santiago. At last report Angel's first
wife was still alive, in her eighties, occupying an apartment in
Nuevo Vedado, Havana, near the homes of her two children.
Lina Ruz bore Angel seven children: Angela, Ramon, Fidel,
Raul, Juana,2 Emma, and Agustina. The oldest, Angela, is now
in her early fifties. Fidel was third and Raul fourth. Sometime
between 1940 and 1942, after all the children were born, at the
urging of a neighbor and close friend, one del Pino, Angel di
vorced Marla and married Lina.
An American overseer of the United Fruit Biran Farm, which
adjoined Castro's property, became well acquainted with Angel
and his family. In his opinion Lina Ruz's mixed ancestry in
cluded Chinese blood. This, he said, was evident not only in
her own facial features but in those of some of her children,
Raul especially, who has unmistakable mongoloid character
2 "Juanita" Castro later defected and came to the United States, where
she denounced her brother's regime.
istics. One of these, his inability to grow a beard, was a source
of amusement to Raul's bearded comrades in the hills. Instead
of a beard he cultivated long hair, wearing it in a bun over his
neck and thereby emphasizing his somewhat effeminate appear
ance. Later, stung by derision, he cut off the bun and wore his
hair as other men do.
Cuba never had a racial problem until Fidel Castro himself
invented the issue when he came to power many years' later.
About 21 percent of the population is believed to have some
Negro ancestry but, unlike the attitude which prevails in the
United States, a person of predominantly white ancestry is not
regarded as a Negro. During the many years I resided in Cuba
I never heard the racial issue discussed as such. In Havana the
better hotels, some beaches and places of entertainment were
patronized mainly by whites, but for reasons which were largely
economic. Some of the social clubs were exclusively white, and
there were some that were exclusively for Negroes.
After the Bay of Pigs misadventure 1 heard Castro ask a
Negro prisoner whether it was not true that he had been ex
cluded from white officers' clubs of the Batista army. The an
swer was, "I do not know, Comandante, it never occurred to
me to inquire." During the Machado administration in the late
1920s, when my office was handling the heavy initial work for
Pan American Airways, I dealt almost exclusively with the full
blooded Negro who was then Ministr r of Communications, an
honorable and competent public official. The color of his skin
was meaningless to us and was never mentioned.
The physical environment in which Fidel Castro was raised
was in no sense typical of Cuba, where the humblest homes are
kept clean. The Castro home was a large, rambling wooden
structure elevated on wooden piles that raised it about seven
feet off the ground; under it the horses were tied and sheltered.
The Cuban people, like the Japanese, are among the cleanest
in the world, but the men in the Castro family were an excep
tion in this respect. Neighbors who were familiar with the Cas
tro home say that in the early days it was indescribably filthy.
114 DAGGER IN 'filii: HEART
Although there was a stream nearby, the Castros seldom
washed or bathed. In Fidel's youth the house had no running
water or toilets, although these facilities were installed in later
years. Visitors reported that chickens had the run of the dirty
interior, sometimes roosting on the foot of beds.
One of my intimate friends, Gustavo Hevia, relates that on
a visit he once made there, a garden sprinkling can had been
hung up for him in a comer of an alcove near his bedroom, to
serve as a shower. A cord was attached to its spout so it could
be tilted downward, making a contraption that greatly amused
the entire Castro clan. The only bed in the house which had
sheets and a pillow case was his own. The respected Hevia fam
ily owned properties adjoining the Castro farm and had many
business dealings with Angel Castro.
The Castros had little family life. In farm families women
usually served meals to the men but did not eat with them, and
the Castros seldom sat down to a meal together. Whoever was
hungry would find some food and eat it on the spot or while
walking around.
Fidel's mother, the servant-cook, was hard and resourceful,
as was her husband. When the family acquired a general store,
she ran it. She usually carried a pistol in a holster when she went
about her chores, within the house as well as outdoors. She was
the dominant force in the family. Although there were no books
in the house and Angel could scarcely sign his name, she be
lieved in education for her brood.
Students of the Cuban scene who have searched for the origin
of Fidel Castro's antisocial attitude refer to his stigma of illegiti
macy. His birth was not the consequence of a common law mar
riage, which involved little stigma. In some rural areas such
unions were almost as numerous as formal marriages and pro
duced the same legal obligations. A sharp distinction was drawn,
however, between bigamous or casual unions and common law
marriages, and Fidel's birth came from a bigamous relationship.
Others attribute his antisocial sentiments to the fact that when
he entered Colegio Dolores in Santiago de Cuba, his personal
hygiene was such that he soon acquired the nickname of bola de
churre, roughly "greaseball." This nickname followed him to
the excellent Coiegio de Belen in Havana, also run by Jesuits.
All those who knew Castro in his youth agree on two traits
of his character: his tendency toward self-dramatization and
his insatiable craving for conversation, which invariably be
came monologues. This may have convinced his mother that he
was destined to be a lawyer, a career which she ordained for
him. Lina's anxiety to give all her children an education was not
wholly shared by the tight-fisted Angel. He frequently com
plained that he worked like a slave to make money while his
children squandered it in Santiago and Havana getting educated.
Among the stories which purport to explain Fidel Castro's
pathological hatred of the United States is one with a romantic
flavor. He started courting an attractive girl in Banes, one Mirta
Diaz Balart. Mirta was a great favorite of Cubans and Ameri
cans alike there, but the bola de churre was not accepted by the
American colony. How much this rejection had to do with his
attitude toward America is a matter of conjecture. Mirta's
father, a respected and honorable country lawyer, represented
our firm in the Banes area. Fidel married Mirta but before long
the marriage ended in divorce.
An attempt to determine the origin of Fidel Castro's anti
Americanism is a fascinating exercise, and I have spent very
considerable time trying to pinpoint it. It is particularly intrigu
ing because of the fact that there was probably no country in
the world where Americans were generally held in higher esteem
than in Cuba, partly for reasons of history but especially be
cause of the conduct of the large American colony engaged in
business and industry. Such anti-Americanism as existed is said
to have been found in intellectual circles, where Communist ten
dencies were also apparent at times, but it was never evident to
me or to my partner. Our staff eventually grew to almost eighty
men and women, all Cubans, yet we do not recall ever having
11' DAGGER IN THE HEART
heard a seriously critical remark among them directed against
either Americans or the United States, which the great majority
of Cubans regarded as their second country.
All indications are that Fidel Castro's anti-Americanism origi
nated during his formative years at the University of Havana.
He aspired unsuccessfully to leadership in the small, leftist, rad
ical student organizations that, with the Communists, made a
fetish of anti-Americanism. His classmates looked upon him as
a firebrand, a terrorist, and a gangster-type individual, and they
were the first to become aware of his anti-American sentiments.
It remains incredible that Castro could have believed the
monstrous charges he hurled against the United States shortly
after coming to power. But it is likely that as he came under in
creasing Communist influence and repeated those charges again
and again, he came to believe part of what he was saying. This
process of self-deception must surely have been accelerated
when he learned that his accusations were being taken seriously
by the liberal segment of the American public and even by
President Kennedy himself, who believed that the Cuban peo
ple had been subjected to unprecedented exploitation and hu
miliation by the United States.
On July 26, 1953 a serious incident brought Castro to pub
lic attention. His Movement later took its name (26th of July
Movement) from this; in Latin America it is customary to name
a political movement after the date of a historical event.
As it turned out, this was the first of several occasions on
which Castro was to misjudge the temper of the Cuban people.
With 150 youthful followers, including two girls, he attacked
the Moncada Army Post and its garrison of a thousand soldiers
at Santiago. Castro expected that the garrison would not
fight but come over to his side, and that the attack would touch
off a general uprising in Santiago. Taken by surprise, the garri
son did relinquish a section of the post and for a few moments
the attackers occupied and held the nearby Palace of Justice.
Then the troops recovered. Within an hour the battle was virtu
ally over. Most of the rebels fled to the hills outside Santiago and
were captured. No official figures of dead and wounded were
issued but the best estimate was that approximately a hundred
had been killed on both sides.
Rumors of the Moncada battle reached Havana the following
day, but in spite of the censorship which was imposed for a few
hours, it soon became evident that the government troops had
been victorious. Within a few days it ceased to be a topic of
conversation.
Detailed reports of the Moncada incident vary according to
their source. The Castro version, as related later by Herbert L.
Matthews, emphasizes the cruelty of the Cuban Army. Mat
thews says that only ten of Castro's followers were killed in the
attack-that the others were slaughtered in cold blood after
surrendering, some after torture. Orders went out, according to
Matthews, to kill Castro on sight, but the lieutenant who cap
tured him disobeyed and brought him in alive. 3
Castro's detractors give a quite different account. They claim
that the brothers Fidel and Raul were cowardly and that neither
actually participated in the fighting.
The version eventually accepted by the Cuban people, drawn
from participants on both sides, was that in the heat of battle
there was some wanton cruelty on the part of both the attackers
and defenders. According to this version, the Archbishop of San
tiago, Enrique Perez Servantes, arranged for the surrender of
the remaining rebels who were in the hills and hiding in Santi
ago, including Fidel Castro. The men surrendered under the
auspices of the Archbishop with the understanding that they
would not be maltreated and would be accorded a fair trial. In
any case, on October 16, 1953 Castro was brought to trial be
fore the Tribunal de Urgencia in Santiago. Reporters were pres
ent and took down stenographically his impassioned defense
3 Herbert L. Matthews, The Cuoon Story (New York: George Bruiller,

1962). p. 14S.
118 DAGGER IN mE HEART
plea, which eventually, after considerable editing, became one
of the major Revolutionary documents, under the title of his
concluding words: History Will Absolve Me.
The Castro brothers and some other survivors were sentenced
to fifteen years of imprisonment and sent off to the Isle of
Pines prison. In May 1955 Batista decreed amnesty to all po
litical prisoners, the Castros included. Their apologists, unwill
ing to picture Batista as anything other than a dictator and
killer, contend that this act lacked any element of compassion.
Matthews wrote that it was "a curious process of reasoning" to
argue that Batista was "more civilized and merciful" than Castro
because he spared the latter's life. 4
November 1956 found Castro in Mexico; from there he
launched his second military adventure-an "invasion" of Cuba
in an 82-foot launch, the Granma. He purchased the boat with
funds furnished by ex-President Prio, who had been deposed
by Batista in 1952. This leaky old launch, which would normally
accommodate from twelve to fifteen persons, took seven days to
cross the Gulf of Mexico to the landing site on the southeastern
coast. The whole operation was badly planned, and from the
start everything went wrong. Eighty-three rebels were jammed
into the Granma and its departure was hastened by the fact that
the Mexican authorities were closing in. All but six or seven of
the group became desperately seasick during the crossing. s
The plan was to coordinate a landing near Niquero with an
uprising in Santiago. Once in Oriente Province, where rein
forcements were expected, the group planned to attack Niquero
and then move north for an assault on the larger city at Manza
nillo. Again Castro misjudged the Cuban people. He thought that
a campaign of sabotage and rebellion would sweep the country
and culminate in a general strike. It did not occur to him that
he might have to take refuge in the Sierra Maestra Mountains;
he had made no study of that region.
4Ibid., p. 145.
5Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary
War (New York: The Monthly Review Press, 1968), p. 40.
CASTRO'S EARLY DAYS 1,9
Castro had boastfully announced in Mexico that he would
be back in his homeland before the end of the year, and the
Cuban Army was on the lookout for him. The crew of the
Granma, fearing that it had been spotted, made a hasty landing
in a swampy area where the men landed safely but lost virtually
all their equipment. As the government troops closed in, all but
twelve of the rebels were killed or captured. The twelve sur
vivors made their way into the mountains. Among them were
the two Castro brothers and the Argentine firebrand Ernesto
"Che" Guevara, who had joined the group in Mexico.
The expedition had landed on December 2, 1956. The fol
lowing day, when news of the adventure reached Havana, it
caused scarcely a ripple of interest. Castro was still an unknown
personality to the Cubans, who went about their business 8S
usual. An official report was issued to the effect that the expedi
tion had been annihilated by the Cuban Air Force and that Fidel
Castro had been killed. The related disturbance in Santiago
three days before the landing had been immediately squelched;
the timing was bad, because at that moment Castro was still far
at sea in the Granma. Thus Castro and a handful of survivors
backed into a guerrilla operation on which they had not counted
and for which they were not prepared. Nothing more was heard
from them for nearly three months. In the meantime, Edmund
Chester, Batista's publicity man, assured the American Embassy
with complete confidence that Castro was dead. Anyone who
saw Castro, he said, would have to bend over.
The United Press Bureau in Havana also reported that Castro
had been killed, and The New York Times front-paged his
death.
CHAPTER NINE
The Build-Up
Hugging the southern coast of Cuba's eastern province, from

the Guantanamo valley to Cabo Cruz, some 140 miles distant,
rises the magnificent cordillera of the Sierra Maestra, or Mas
ter Range, the highest chain of Cuban mountains. The ridge
line, set back from the coast from 7 to 10 miles, has an average
elevation of 3,000 feet but Turquino Peak, the highest in Cuba,
rises to about 6,500 feet. The views from its summit in good
weather are superb. Jamaica, which is 90 miles away, can be
seen on a clear day across thousands of square miles of the blue
Caribbean. To the north stretch palm-flecked plains. From the
cordillera ridge many small rivers wind down the valleys to the
roIling shore line indented by small bays. The foothills for the
most part are a jungle wilderness, and the whole area is covered
by pine and many forms of Cuban flora; parrots and other birds
of exotic plumage abound.
In the late 1920s, when I was negotiating the purchase of
lands for Pan American airstrips, I flew over the Sierra many
times. Often it is partly hidden by a bluish mist, but on the
slopes of the shimmering peaks one spots from the air occa
sional bohios, the typical peasant houses constructed by nailing
or tying planks of tough royal palm bark to a skeleton of poles,
which supports a canopy of royal palm leaves.
In the Sierra Maestra area, comprising t ,500 square miles,
lived approximately 50,000 of Cuba's poorest peasants, many
of them squatters. They were notoriously the most illiterate and
tHE BUlLo.UP HI
backward of the Cuban farmers, and they knew little or nothing
of the modem era. They had no radios, newspapers, or elec 8
tricity, no means of transportation other than mules, and there

were no roads except in the foothills themselves, where most
of them lived.
It was in this area that Castro and eleven followers, those
who remained of the eighty-three who had "invaded" Cuba on
December 2, 1956, took refuge. The army general staff had re
ported to Batista that the group had been wiped out or had
given up the struggle. Army units did not attempt t4e hopeless
task of pursuing what may have been left of it into the moun
tains. Army planes flew over the area, however, urging them
through loudspeakers to give up and promising them freedom,
but without result. The government put planes at the disposal
of reporters who, with army officers, made a broad recon
naisance of the Sierra, but they observed no trace of the rebels.
The troops were then withdrawn from the area.
During the first month and a half after the twelve men who
had arrived on the Granma reached the mountains a few peas
ants joined them, feigning loyalty for self-protection, and then
promptly deserted. One of the original twelve also deserted. The
scores of montunos, mountain people, whom they approached
with great caution, were either hostile or totally disinterested.
They wished only to continue living their own lives in their own
way. On balance, after seven weeks the group had been aug
mented by only six, so that by late January the Castro "rebel
army" was composed of eighteen men altogether. Thus, as Her
bert L. Matthews of The New York Times subsequently wrote,
"Without a press Fidel Castro was a hunted outlaw, leading a
small band of youths in a remote jungle area of eastern Cuba,
isolated and ineffectual." 1 He must have been saying to himself,
added Matthews, that "without a press we shall get nowhere." 2
This was, in fact, exactly what Castro had decided after six
1 Herbert L. Matthews, The Cuban Story (New York: George Braziller,

1962), p. 16.
2tbid., p. 18.
U2 DAGGER IN TIlE HEART
weeks of near-futile recruiting. In mid-January, 1957, he made
the smartest decision of his life, from his own point of view.
He sent a member of his group to Havana to try to arrange an
interview with a journalist--and only a foreigner, because no
Cuban journalist, even among the many who were hostile to
Batista, could be expected to swallow the audacious lie he
planned to put over, namely that he had mastery of the Sierra
Maestra! S A Cuban reporter misinformed and credulous to
that extent would be impossible to find, or even to imagine. He
could have brought out photographs proving that Castro was
alive, but he would have had to debase his profession to do the
kind of reporting Castro had in mind. Moreover, the audience
Castro hoped to reach in his strategy for winning press atten
tion was in the United States.
Probably Castro's luckiest single break was the circumstance
that the journalist chosen by fate to conduct the crucial inter
view was the Latin American specialist of The New York Times,
Herbert L. Matthews.
Then fifty-seven years old, Matthews had been on the Times
staff for thirty-five years. His thinking, sympathies, and precon
ceptions were strongly "liberal." Repeatedly he had shown him
self highly susceptible to personal contacts and influences on the
"revolutionary" fringes. In reporting the Spanish Civil War he
had been an outspoken partisan of the Communist-infiltrated
Loyalist forces, disdainful of concepts of objectivity, to the
point of having made the Loyalist situation appear much
brighter than it was and having been reproached on this score
by the Times publisher.4
Whenever Matthews had visited Latin American countries,
including Cuba, the more conservative elements and the busi
ness community--on the basis of past experience-had stirred
uneasily. Strongly and openly anti-Batista, he often wrote of
"thousands of Cubans slaughtered, often after torture." I) Opin
3 Ibid., p. 3l.
4 Time, July 27, 1959, p. 48.
:; Matthews, pp. 166. 292.
THE BUILD·UP il3
ionated to the degree of arrogance, politically naIve, a presumed
expert on Latin America, he was perfectly conditioned for the
disastrous role he was about to play.
When Castro's emissary arrived in Havana, he approached
my friend and client, Mrs. Ruby Hart Phillips, resident cor
respondent of The New York Times. Since Castro was believed
to be dead, she realized at once that this was a good story.
Aware that Matthews was planning one of his periodical trips to
Havana, Mrs. Phillips suggested that he come at once.
The meeting between Castro and Matthews took place not
long afterward, in mid-February. The journey to the moun
tains, as the Times man told the story, was a highly dangerous
venture. Lives of a number of Cubans were in his hands, he
wrote, and because of the "fierceness and viciousness" of Ba
tista, those involved were risking death, preceded by torture.
The fact is that there was no danger. Everyone from Batista
down believed Castro to be dead. It would not have been pos
sible to convince anyone in Cuba that Matthews was on his way
to see Castro.
Matthews and his wife, accompanied by three young Cubans,
drove from Havana to Manzanillo, a distance of about five hun
dred miles, over the Central Highway. The tourist season was at
its peak and they planned, if stopped, to say that Matthews was
a rich American on his way to look over a sugar plantation
which he was considering buying. They were not stopped, how
ever; the few soldiers whom they met on the way merely glanced
at them in the friendly manner to which all Americans were ac
customed. While passing through Santa Clara after daybreak
they circled a policeman standing on a comer several times, ask
ing him where they could stop for coffee and how to get out of
town. Mrs. Matthews later declared that they had stopped so
often for coffee "that a long trail of people had every chance to
examine us in detail." 6 She remained in Manzanillo, a seaport
6 Mrs. Herbert L. Matthews, in The New York Times house organ Times
Talk, March, 1957.
on the south coast, with a group "you might meet at any Cuban
tea party," 7 while her husband and his companions pushed on
in a jeep and then on foot.
Matthews can be forgiven for dramatizing the xendezvous
that, as he later said, would "literally alter the course of Cuban
history." He wrote of the "two low, soft, toneless whistles" with
which his companions made contact with the Castro emissary.
All conversations, he recounted, had been carried on in "the
lowest possible whispers." Actually it was altogether unlikely
that there could have been a Cuban soldier within miles.
What cannot be forgiven, however, is his exaggerated "in
terpretive" reporting and, especially, certain statements--not
quoting Castro, but made in his own name-that were palpably
false. The three articles that came out of the Castro-Matthews
meeting represent, in my opinion, the most reprehensible act
of journalism attributed to a reputable newspaper in my lifetime.
They came at the ebb tide of the flood that was to deliver Cuba
to Communism. They contained, as Matthews himself boasted,
"all the elements out of which the insurrection grew to its ulti
mate triumph." 8 In effect, a journalist on a reportorial assign
ment assumed the posture of an insurrectionist. {Guevara, who
was not present at the brief interview, later said Castro had told
him Matthews "asked concrete questions, none of them tricky"
and that "he obviously sympathized with the Revolution."} 9
Although there had been very little fighting, Matthews wrote

that Castro was "fighting hard and successfully" and that "fre
quent clashes were taking place in which the Government troops
were losing heavily." The cream of Batista's army had been
"fighting a thus-far losing battle" and Castro "has mastery 01
the Sierra Maestra." (Emphasis added.) And while the rebels
7Ibid., pp. 25, 26.

8Matthews, p. 39.
9 Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary
War (New York: Monthly Review Press, Inc., 1968), p. 78.
THE BUILD-UP 125
actually had only nine rifles with telescopic sights, Matthews
wrote, "it seems his men have something more than fifty of
these." 10
With respect to the size of the eighteen-man rebel group,
Matthews wrote that he had seen about twenty-five rebels and
"knew" there were others nearby-perhaps forty in all. He
quoted Castro as saying Batista worked in columns of two
hundred while he operated in groups of ten to forty. Two years
later, in April 1959, at the Hotel Astor in New York, Castro
ridiculed Matthews for permitting himself to be bluffed into
inflating the strength of his tiny group of eighteen men.ll
One of Matthews' questions during the interview concerned
the anti-imperialistic tone of the Movement, and Castro an
swered, "You can be sure we have no animosity toward the
United States and the American people." I recalled this after
Castro had come to power, when we heard him describe the
United States as "a vulture feeding upon humanity."
Matthews wrote that the Castro program "amounts to a new
deal for Cuba, radical, democratic and therefore anti-Commu
nist." He described Castro as "a man of ideals," who "has
10 The New York Times, February 24, 1957, first of three Matthews
articles, beginning on p. 1.
11 Prior to the Matthews interview the Castro group had engaged in
two minor bit-and-run actions that involved little risk and from which
they emerged unscathed. On January 17 they swooped down on a small
army post and caught the ten guards asleep, with the result that, as
Guevara later wrote in Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War,
"The soldiers, almost defenseless, were cut to pieces." Five were killed,
the others surrendered, and the rebels made a quick escape with the
captured weapons. This action later became known in Revolutionary lore
as "The Battle of La Plata."
The second adventure occurred five days later and was also devoid of
any element of bravery or glory. From a safe distance the rebels
ambushed and shot down with telescopic rifles five members of an army
patrol. In their scramble to get away they picked up only one Garand
rifte. Castro later described this incident as "The Battle of El Arroyo del
Infierno" (Hell's Creek). After these actions the army pulled its small
units out of the mountains.
DAGGER IN THE HEART
strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to
restore the Constitution and hold elections." 12 Not merely, be it
Roted, that Castro professed such ideals but that he had them!
For Raul Castro, the evil younger brother and one of the
most sinister figures of the Revolution, Matthews had kind
words, describing him as "slight and pleasant." 13 (Shortly after
the new regime came to power and before the rudimentary
courts had even been set up, Raul Castro ordered seventy-five
men machine-gunned into a common grave.) His brutality far
exceeded anything of the kind attributed to Batista by his worst
enemies.
On the issue of Communism Matthews emphatically reassured
his ,readers. Although there was a well trained, hard core of
Communists in Cuba doing as much mischief as it could, he
said, "there is no Communism to speak of in Fidel Castro's
26th of July Movement." 14 More, the Castro program was
"anti-Communist." Hi
Matthews reported that as the interview ended Castro said,
"I am always in the front line" and the others had confirmed
this fact. Then, as the group arose to say good-bye; "You have
taken quite a risk in coming here but we have the whole area
covered, and we will get you out safely." 16 Castro never would
have dared to make this statement to a Cuban journalist, or in
fact to any Cuban over ten years of age, and expect it to be
swallowed.
The most pernicious and electrifying aspect of the Matthews
reporting was that he personally vouched for the large and win
ning rebel force.
12 The New York Times, February 24, 1957, first of three Matthews
articles.
13 Ibid.
14 The New York Times, February 25, 1957, second of three Matthews
articles.
15 The New York Times, February 24, 1957, first Matthews article.
16 Ibid.
THE BUILD-UP 127
The New York Times handled the three Matthews articles
in a manner designed to obtain maximum publicity. Well adver
tised in advance, they started on the front page of the Sunday
edition of February 24, 1957, because the Sunday circulation
is twice that of the daily edition.
Matthews has described the Times as "the most powerful
journalistic instrument that has ever been forged in the free
world." 11 Those who work for it, he says, "use arms that,
metaphorically speaking, are the equivalent of nuclear bombs." 18
In this case he did not overstate. The Times is without ques
tion the most influential newspaper in the world. It profoundly
influences politicians, educators, writers, and other newspapers.
It has unparalleled access to the corridors and offices of official
Washington. It is required reading in other editorial offices, and
Times copy therefore has a cumulative effect. Teachers and
professors read it, quote it, and recommend it to their students.
If scholarly papers, magazines, or books are to be written, re
search invariably calls for The New York Times Index, which
has a virtual monopoly in its field.
.The Times has another lever that can exert tremendous pres
sure on public opinion. Its News Service puts most of its for
eign coverage on the wire and sends out the Times front page
makeup to show editors how to play the news. By the end of
1965 the Times News Service had 154 client papers, 99 in the
United States and 55 abroad.
Any lack of journalistic responsibility, as in this case, is the
more indefensible when the power exercised is "equivalent to
nuclear bombs." Certainly the Matthews articles on Castro had
an explosive impact in the United States and a chain reaction
throughout the whole hemisphere.
There was censorship in Havana when the first one appeared
and it had been deleted from my copy of the Times. However,
17 Matthews, p. 308.
18/bid., p. 308.

tourists brought copies with them, and the story got around.
Cubans are great talkers; I cannot imagine any place in the
world where news travels faster. The Times series became the
talk of the town. Within a few days at least ten of my American
friends had sent me copies. Since college days back in 1914 I
had been a first-to-last-page reader of the Times. It carried
great weight with me and I was astounded by both the content
and the political tenor of the Matthews dispatches.
Batista reacted at once. The Cuban Minister of Defense an
nounced that the government "does not know whether Fidel
Castro is alive or dead but takes full responsibility for stating
that no such supporting forces as Matthews described actually
ex:ist." Then he made the first of his major blunders: He said
that "with the same responsibility the government reiterates that
at no time did the correspondent have an interview with the
man to whom he ascribes so much force and so many non
existent creeds." This played into Matthews' hands and the fol
lowing day the Times published a picture of him with Castro
in the mountains. Shortly afterward Batista lifted press censor
ship and the Cuban press translated and published the full texts
of the three articles.
There was much more to come. The Times promotion of
Castro was only the opening gun of an unprecedented barrage
of pUblicity. A steady flow of journalists, many of them well
known as left-wingers, poured into the Sierra Maestra. The first
to follow Matthews was a deputy news director of the Columbia
Broadcasting System, Robert Taber, with a companion named
Wendell Hoffman. Though they hauled with them bulky photo
graphic and sound recording equipment, they had no trouble
getting)t into the hills. Taber's filmed and taped interview with
Castro was broadcast nationally by CBS in the United States on
May 17, 1957, and subsequently in various foreign countries.
Almost five years later a Senate Subcommittee uncovered the
record of Taber. He had been arrested on various occasions
and had served a prison sentence of almost four years in the
Ohio State Reformatory for kidnaping, armed robbery, and
THE BUlLD·UP 129
automobile theft.19 Following his television-radio interview with
Castro, Taber became Executive Secretary of the Castro
financed "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" and traveled behind
the Iron Curtain with Castro agents.
American television viewers were subsequently treated to
several performances by Fidel Castro on major network pro
grams, where he was accorded what the medium refers to as
"prime time." Edward R. Murrow, a promoter of liberal causes,
gave him a national forum, and this was followed by an inter
view with Ed Sullivan that was taped in Cuba. Later on Jack
Paar, the popular TV entertainer, met Castro, was captivated
by him, and expressed his enthusiasm in a series of telecasts
over the NBC network.
As Castro's public relations campaign, sparked and sustained
by The New York Times, gained momentum, there came a time
when a number of American journalists were in the Cuban
mountains at the same time, all pounding out the romantic story
of Fidel Castro. In fact, when the CIA eventually decided to
check on the Castro Movement, at the urgent insistence of U.S.
Ambassador Earl E. T. Smith, it sent its agent into the moun
tains as a journalist. There followed a flood of pro-Castro books
and articles by leftist professors and writers such as C. Wright
Mills of Columbia University, Kyle Haselden, Carleton Beals,
Norman Bailey. Samuel Schapiro, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de
Beauvoir, and Waldo Frank, all helping to condition public
opinion and clear the path for Castro and his Communist hench
men. Waldo Frank, who was subsidized by Castro, called him
a "genius" and "less the politician than the poet and the
lover." 20 Professor Mills' book, Listen, Yankee!, was particu
larly effective propaganda, presenting the naked, unrelieved Cas
tro line.
During the summer months of 1957 there was an acceleration
111 Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary to Investi

gate Internal Security, Part 3, April 10, 1962, p. 180.
20 Waldo Frank, Cuba: Prophetic Island (New York: Marzani & Mun
sell, 1961), p. 141.
of anti-government terrorism in Cuba, although the incidents
still occurred only sporadically. On occasions bombs exploded,
power lines were cut, communications were interrupted, and fires
were started. Nevertheless, there was prosperity in Cuba; busi
ness was good, and the tourist season of early 1957 was up to ex
pectations.
Late in August, with the pro-Castro press campaign in full

swing, I discussed with my partner the idea of going to New
York to see my friend Harry F. Guggenheim in an effort to find
some way to induce The New York Times to desist from insti
gating rebellion in Cuba. I knew that Harry was an old friend
of Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the Times, and that his sis
ter, Mrs. Roger Strauss, was one of Mrs. Sulzberger's closest
friends. We came to the conclusion that I was in as good a posi
tion as any Cuban to accomplish this mission.
On arriving in New York I found that one of Batista's cabinet
members, Nicolas Arroyo, the young Minister of Public Works,
was also there with an aide. Knowing that there were few Ameri
cans as well qualified as Guggenheim to counsel a Latin Ameri
can chief of state facing Batista's problems, I telephoned Harry
to ask whether I could bring Arroyo and his friend along. He
invited me to do so.
We all had lunch at the Guggenheim estate at Sands Point,
Long Island, and Mrs. Strauss came over for the occasion from
Greenwich, Connecticut. After lunch the men went to Harry's
trophy room, where we sat down to discuss Cuba's problems. I
said, "Harry, The New York Times is continuing to incite rebel
lion in our country and I would like to know if there is any way
of putting an end to the campaign that was started by Herbert
Matthews. "
Guggenheim explained that Arthur Sulzberger was very ill,
having suffered several strokes, and that it would be impossible
for anyone to see him. He added that Sulzberger always dis
played great loyalty to his staff and that he thought there was no
chance at all of inducing him or anyone else on the Times to call
THE BUILD-UP 131
off Matthews. I asked whether this would also apply to Louis
Loeb, the general counsel of the Times. Mr. Loeb was a mem
ber of a firm which we represented in Cuba and I could have
reached him very easily. Yes, it did, said Harry; and anyway,
the Matthews attitude fitted into the liberal ideological pattern
of the Times. I remember that Harry Guggenheim was much
more keenly aware of the danger Castro represented than even
his Cuban guests. At one point he said, "Mario, if this man ever
comes to power he is going to confiscate the properties of all
your clients and introduce a Communist beachhead in our hemi
sphere." Much later I learned that Guggenheim had warned
Vice President Richard Nixon and other officials of the Ameri
can government precisely along these lines.
Our conversation then turned to Batista. Addressing Arroyo,
Guggenheim, in his soft-spoken manner and with his attractive
half-smile, expounded his belief that Batista still had the solu
tion of the problem in his own hands. He should at once set the
date for a national election. It was not enough that this election
be honest-he would have to convince the Cuban people and
the Americans as well that it would be conducted on the highest
plane of integrity. This, he said, could be done by inviting the
United Nations, the OAS, or the American Bar Association to
send a delegation to Cuba to witness the conduct of the elec
tion, and Batista should announce well beforehand that this was
going to be done.
Addressing Arroyo, he said, "Mario can help you with the
American Bar Association if that is what you decide upon. If
your chief will do this, he can go down in history as one of
Cuba's great presidents. He held an honest election once be
fore and his opponent won. That might well happen again; but
if it does, Batista can go to Europe for a few months and then
return to Cuba a respected citizen, retain and enjoy his proper
ties, and educate his children in his own country. This is what
I told Machado when I was Ambassador in Havana, but he did
not see it my way. Unless Batista follows this course he is almost
certain to be deposed, to lose the respect of his people. I urge
13% DAGGER IN THE HEART
you to carry this message to him from one who is a friend of
Cuba and who wishes him well."
On returning to New York I called on myoId friend C. D.
Jackson, then publisher of Life magazine, and posed the same
question: ~'How can we stop The New York Times from inciting
rebellion in our country?" "C.D." was of the same opinion as
Guggenheim: It would be impossible to induce the Times to call
off Matthews or to change its policy. He suggested that Batista
might hire an American public relations firm to offset the bad
publicity his government was receiving in the United States, and
although I did not wish to be involved in this step, I reported
the conversation to Arroyo, and later learned that an American
public relations firm had, in fact, been employed, but ineffec
tively.
In Havana some days thereafter, Arroyo told me that upon
his return he had given Batista a "blow-by-blow" account of
his conversation with Guggenheim. Batista's wife, Marta, was
present at the time. They had not been impressed. My mission
to the United States had been a failure.
What Dr. Cubas and I most feared in late 1957 was that the
American press campaign in favor of the radical, anti-American
Castro might eventually have a strong effect on Congress and
then on the State Department. We did not, I must admit, have
the prescience of Harry Guggenheim and Earl Smith in foresee
ing that a Castro regime would mean a Communist takeover.
Moreover, we still had confidence that the American State De
partment could be relied upon to help us achieve the formation
of the honest and responsible government the Cuban people so
earnestly desired.
We cannot entirely dismiss Matthews at this point, as he con

tinued to playa vital role in the Castro-Communist story. It
should be recorded here that when Castro's true colors were on
full display, Matthews did not have the grace to correct his
original errors. On the contrary, he blamed his journalist col
leagues for driving Castro more quickly and deeply into the
THE BUILD-UP 133
Communist embrace. By October 1961, when he was virtually
alone in defending Castro, Matthews was writing, "I know good
journalistic work when I see it, and I know poor work." The
American press coverage of the Cuban situation, he said, was
"distorted, unfair, ill-informed and intensely emotional." It
lacked "balance and objectivity." And he reconfirmed his "sym
pathy and, in many respects, admiration for Fidel Castro." If
the United States should win the cold war, he said, the Cuban
Revolution will nevertheless have played "a great role, and a
worthy one." He could never bring himself "to condemn it and
to condemn Fidel Castro outright for what he has done, and
especially for what he has tried to do." 21
Even after Castro had announced to the world that he was
a Marxist-Leninist and would be one "until the day I die,"
Matthews told a gathering at the Overseas Press Club in New
York that he didn't believe him; that the label didn't fit him.
"Today Castro may believe he is a Communist," he said, "but
tomorrow he may believe something else." The New York Her
ald Tribune reported these remarks on December 7, 1961. The
Times remained silent.
Matthews' byline thereafter disappeared from The New York
Times, but not Matthews. Without fanfare he was elevated to
the editorial board of the newspaper, where his opinions became
the anonymous expression of the newspaper's opinions. Except
when he was away from New York or having his days off, he I
wrote virtually all the editorials on Latin America, including

those on Cuba. 22 When the editorial board met, Matthews was
the expert who advised them concerning editorial policy on
Latin American affairs. As spokesman for a great newspaper,
Matthews called for patience, understanding, and coexistence
with the Castro-Communist regime.
Five years after his celebrated Cuban series, Herbert L. Mat
thews appeared to face up to the calamity he had helped to
21Matthews, pp. 277, 284, 299.
221bid., pp. 115, 206.

·spark. In the second printing of his book, The Cuban Story, in
March, 1962, he wrote that if Castro represents a regime "ac
tively playing a role on the side of the Sino-Soviet bloc against
the United States and engaging in subverting and stirring up
anti-American, Leftist revolutions throughout Latin America
... then he and his regime will have to be destroyed." He added,
"No amount of sympathy for Fidel Castro could lead an Ameri
can to any other decision." 23
Since then the "ifs" in the equation have been erased. But Mr.
Matthews has scarcely been conspicuous among Americans ded
icated to the destruction of the Castro regime.
23/bid., p. 276.
CHAPTER TEN
Cuba at the Crossroads
The glorification of Castro by the American press was deeply

demoralizing to the other and more moderate opposition groups.
The process moved so swiftly that by the end of 1957, ten
months after the Matthews articles appeared, although Castro
had been able to recruit only about a hundred men, he felt
confident enough to reject with scorn an invitation to join six
other anti-Batista elements in a common effort to overthrow the
President.
His letter of December 14, 1957 to these six other groups
provided indisputable proof of an authoritarian obsession in
his thinking. In it he proclaimed himself as the source of law,
empowered to designate the Chief of State in a new government,
abolish the legislature and judiciary, and do away with political
parties other than his own 26th of July Movement. In short, he
made clear his intention to create a totalitarian regime. The full
text of this extraordinary letter was in the hands of the Ameri
can Embassy in Havana and of Roy Rubottom and William Wie
land at the State Department in Washington by January 1 or 2,
1958.
Despite the eulogies he was receiving in the United States,
Castro up to this point had accomplished virtually nothing. As
new men joined up others deserted, and the small, half-starved
group wandered aimlessly through the mountains. Peasants who
were caught and suspected of being informers were ruthlessly
executed. On March 16, 1957 a contingent of about fifty men,
thirty of whom had arms, arrived from Santiago, recruited by
Frank Pais, a Castro follower. With his "army" thus augmented
to about eighty, Castro prepared to mount his most important
military adventure.
In late May the rebels descended from the mountains and at
tacked a small isolated lumber camp on the coast, consisting of
two wooden buildings and three small guard posts, each large
enough for two or three soldiers. There were fifty-three men in
the camp altogether, most of them unarmed workers.
As was his custom, Castro gave the signal to attack by firing
his rifle from a distant hill. In the ensuing fight the few defend
ing soldiers fought bravely, killing six and wounding nine of the
rebels. Of the lumber camp group fourteen were killed, nineteen
wounded, six escaped, and fourteen were taken prisoner. (This is
the account of "The Battle of Uvero" given by the candid Gue
vara. I Castro later called it a "battle of extraordinary impor
tance.") The attackers quickly withdrew into the mountains and
by the end of the following month more than forty had de
serted, "sometimes with our consent, other times without,"
wrote Guevara, so that by late June 1957 "the troop never had
more than twenty-five or thirty effective members." 2
Elsewhere, however, occasional outbreaks by other revolu
tionary groups flared up and were as quickly extinguished. The
most ambitious of these had been an attempt, on March 13,
1957, to assassinate Batista and his family. Two days earlier
Batista had learned that a plot was afoot and used emissaries in
an attempt to dissuade suspected leaders. He alerted the Palace
guard and kept his older children away from school. His preg
nant wife and youngest child, who was sick, remained with him
at the Palace.
At about 3 P.M. a group of activists drove up to the rear en
trance of the Palace in a truck while the guard was having lunch
1 Ernesto "Chen Guevara, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary

War (New York: Monthly Review Press, Inc., 1968), pp. 111 to 119.
2 Ibid., p. 126.
CUBA AT THE CROSSROADS 137
and rushed the entrance, firing as they entered. They got as far
as the second floor, where their progress was stopped by an iron
grilled door. The President, his wife, and his child were on the
third floor. Had the attackers used a bazooka or explosives to
smash the door, their adventure might well have been successful.
As it was, forty of the attackers and a number of the Palace
guards were killed. Simultaneously a group of students led by a
heavyset, handsome young man named Jose Antonio Echeverria
seized the popular CMQ radio station and broadcast reports
that the President had been killed and the government over
thrown. As they left the station Echeverria was shot down by
the police.
This poorly planned but courageous assault had been carried
out without Castro's knowledge by followers of ex-President
Prio and by the Directorio Revolucionario of Havana University
students.
That night Batista's military intelligence, known as the SIM
(Servicio de lnteligencia Militar), began rounding up opposition
leaders. They tried to arrest my cousin, Carlos Marquez Sterling,
Batista's most formidable political opponent, but he barricaded
himself in his home. The incident created such a public disturb
ance in the neighborhood that the police left without completing
the arrest. Carlos had not been implicated in the assault on the
Palace.
The SIM did find my friend, Dr. Pelayo Cuervo Navarro, a
fifty-eight-year-old lawyer who had always fought for clean gov
ernment. He was taken to a small lake about four blocks from
our home in Country Club Park and shot through the back of
the head. His body was dumped close to the lake, where it was
found the next morning. Pelayo was a man of great integrity.
With little financial backing he had been elected a Senator by
one of the highest votes in Cuban history. My partner and I had
always given him such support as we could. He used to come to
our office about once a month to discuss the political situation,
and our talks usually dealt with Washington attitudes and poli
cies with respect to Cuba. Everything about him marked him as
138 DAGGER IN THE IIEAR.T
a conservative lawyer, and his murder shocked us profoundly
and stirred the entire country.
Batista always insisted that this crime was committed without
his knowledge in the emotional aftermath of the Palace assault
in which army enlisted men and police had been murdered. It
was said that a note had been found on Echeverria implicating
Pelayo Cuervo as the mastermind of the plot to assassinate Ba~
tista. There were other versions, of course. Marquez Sterling,
who was certainly as knowledgeable as any of the Cuban politi~
cians of the day, believes the murder was not ordered from the
Palace. "Batista will profit personally from his office but he does
not kill," he told me. Rightly or wrongly, he felt that Pelayo had
been involved in the plot of March 13. The murder of Pelayo
left a black stain on Batista's record, however, because those
who carried it out were never caught and punished.
Every Cuban knows that Castro's oft-repeated charge that
Batista was responsible for the deaths of 20,000 Cubans is a
cynical falsehood. The most reliable opinions I have been able
to obtain place the total deaths at not more than 900 on both
the government and anti-government sides, including the final
revolutionary activities of 1957-1958. After Castro had come
to power the strongly anti-Batista magazine Bohemia published
a list of those alleged to have been killed on both sides during
the last Batista administration; the total came to 869. One of
my best informed CIA friends, who worked in Cuba during the
closing years of Batista rule and the early months of the Castro
regime, put the figure for both sides at definitely less than 1,000.
The Latin people are given to exaggeration in matters in which
they are emotionally involved, but I believe that virtually all
Cubans will agree today that the wide acceptance abroad of
Castro's grotesque charge that Batista was responsible for
20,000 deaths was one of his most striking propaganda achieve
ments.
Shortly after the assault on the Palace the Batista regime ar
ranged for a counter-demonstration. Cuban trade, civic, and po
litical groups were called on to visit the Palace to congratulate
the President on his escape and express confidence in the gov
ernment. Telegrams were sent to many of the people specifying
the times and dates when they were to appear. The procession
went on for several days, and several of those summoned gave
impassioned speeches in Batista's presence, condemning the at
tack and praising the administration.
In the spring of 1957 the State Department began making ef

forts to remove Ambassador Arthur Gardner, a political ap
pointee, but was unable to induce him to offer his resignation. s
He worked hard to retain his post, which he greatly enjoyed.
Havana, so close to home and among the attractive and friendly
Cuban people, was one of the more valued diplomatic posts.
Gardner argued that his departure would be interpreted as lack
of confidence in Batista-the least convincing argument he could
have advanced to the State Department, since that was what was
developing in Washington. An ardent admirer of Batista, he sel
dom missed an opportunity to praise him.
When the appointment of Earl E. T. Smith to succeed Gard
ner was announced in May 1957, I received a letter from
Charles Hallenborg of New York, a close and highly regarded
friend. He had known Smith as a colleague on the War Produc
tion Board and described him as wealthy, socially prominent,
conservative, and intelligent. "I don't know how much he knows
about Cuba," Hallenborg wrote, "but you can be sure no one
will pull the wool over his eyes."
Earl Smith arrived in Havana in mid-July. Our home was
directly across from the Embassy residence, but before we could
make the customary neighborly call the Ambassador telephoned,
and we lunched together downtown. Our first meeting was strict
ly social, with no discussion of politics. Smith was a tall man,
perhaps six feet five inches, clear-eyed, and possessed of a
springy vigor. He had the earmarks of culture and an air of self
3 Herbert L. Matthews, The Cuban Story (New York: George BrazilIer,

Inc., 1962), p. 68.
confidence. Certainly there was nothing devious about Earl
Smith; he said what he thought, and very bluntly. Since his
appointment about two months earlier Florence and Earl Smith
had been studying Spanish intensively and planned to keep it up.
Earl's hobbies were golf and bridge, and although we never en
gaged in either together, I learned that he excelled at both. I
asked if it were true that he had been the intercollegiate boxing
champion while at Yale in 1926. No, this exaggeration derived
from the fact that Earl, who was the heavyweight champion at
Yale, had knocked out the heavyweight champion of Annapolis
in the Yale-Navy boxing meet of 1924.
I remember telling the Ambassador that I thought he was
lucky to have a competent staff, several of whom were my inti
mate friends. He knew that to be the case, he said, but would
look to my partner and me for the strictly Cuban point of view
on the problems ahead.
Socially our relationship proved to be neither warm nor dis
tant. My wife was never invited by Florence Smith to participate
in the social work she directed. Although we were neighbors,
during the year and a half the Smiths were in Havana they dined
with us only twice.
Since we did not discuss Cuban politics at our first meeting, I
was unaware until much later of significant aspects of the brief
ing Smith had received at the State Department preparatory to
taking up his duties in Havana. One was that the Department
had suggested he get together with Herbert L. Matthews! At this
meeting, which lasted several hours, Matthews asserted that, as
a journalist very knowledgeable on Cuba and Latin America, he
believed it would be best for Cuba and the United States to have
Batista removed from office. 4 Another even more significant
aspect was that in six weeks of briefing in the State Department
neither William A. Wieland, Director of the Office of Middle
'" Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary to Investi

gate Internal Security, "Testimony of Earl E. T. Smith," August 30, 1960,
p.683.
CUBA AT 11IE CROMROADS 141
American Affairs, nor Roy R. Rubottom, Jr., Assistant Secretary
of State for Inter-American Affairs, mentioned the Communist
uprising in Bogota, Colombia, nine years earlier, in which Castro
had played an active role and during which both these career
Foreign Service Officers were present. 5
We knew Wieland's early record well. He had lived in Havana
from 1928 to 1937 and had worked for one of our clients, the
Havana Post. the best English-language newspaper in Cuba. Its
highly regarded publisher, Mrs. Clara Park Pessino, had fired
him. Although his salary was only about $35 a week she re
garded him as a had investment. His spotty educational back
ground included one year at Villanova College. Much later I
learned that on June 4, 1941, he went from a $3, 120-a-year job
with the Associated Press to a starting annual salary of $7,000
with the State Department. Eventually his government salary
was increased to more than $24,000. Wieland was appointed to
his position in the State Department without any security check.
He falsified his application by the omission of vital facts and
his personal history questionnaire by overt misstatement. 6
When those of us in Havana who knew Wieland learned that
he had become one of the State Department's experts on Latin
American and Cuban affairs, in a position where he could exert
great influence on his superiors and on American foreign policy,
we were astonished. Technically, he was Ambassador Smith's
superior. We reasoned that his high position could be explained
only by the fact that he spoke Spanish fluently.
To understand Wieland and the part he was to play in Cas
tro's takeover of Cuba, it is necessary to know about the Com
munist uprising in Bogota in April 1948, commonly known as
the Bogotazo.
The Bogotazo occurred on the occasion of the Ninth Inter
5 Earl E. T. Smith. The Fourth Floor (New York: Random House,

1962), p. 68.
6 Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, The Case
of William Wieland, 1962, p. 3.
national Conference of the American States. The U. S. Am
bassador in Bogota at the time was Willard D. Beaulac, who
had previously been stationed in Havana, an able career diplo
mat. On his staff in 1948 were Rubottom and Wieland, both
with the rank of Second Secretary. Wieland was responsible for
political reporting. The American delegation that came to Bo
gota for the conference was headed by Secretary of State George
C. Marshall.
Colombia is rich in democratic traditions. Like the United
States, it has only two cohesive political parties, the Conserva
tives and the Liberals. The President of the republic at that
time, Dr. Mariano Ospina Perez, belonged to the Conservative
Party. The "sole leader" of the Liberal Party was a dynamic
rabble-rouser named Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, who had been mak
ing grave and undocumented charges against Ospina. Political
feeling had been running high.
As the opening date of the Conference approached there were
strong rumors in the capital that the Communists were planning
to disrupt the meeting. Wieland was the staff member whose pri
mary duty it was to gather such information and assist the Am
bassador in reporting it to Washington. On March 22, eight days
before the first scheduled Conference session, Beaulac tele
graphed the State Department a resume of acts of violence that
had already occurred and reported a number of clear indications
that Communists intended to wreck the hemisphere gathering.
In the last days of March four Cuban students had arrived
in Bogota from Havana to attend an "anti-imperialist" student
congress called to coincide with the Conference of American
States. Two of them, Fidel Castro and Rafael del Pino, put up
at the Hotel Claridge. The other two, Enrique Ovares Herrera
and Alfredo Guevara (no relation to "Che" Guevara) moved
into a rooming house. Guevara was a hard-line, disciplined
Communist; Ovares had been a founder of an Anti-Imperialist
Student Union created in Prague in 1946.
On April 3, shortly after their arrival, Castro and del Pino
went to the Teatro Col6n and showered anti-American leaftets
down on the orchestra from the balcony during a performance.
When the police checked on them, quantities of Communist and
anti-American propaganda leaftets were found in their room at
the Oaridge.
On the morning of April 9, 1948, Ovares and Guevara made
the rounds of newspaper offices seeking publicity for their com
ing student congress, while Castro and del Pino planned to visit
the leftist Gaitan. Their purpose was to invite Gaitan to speak
at the inaugural session of their anti-American congress. Herbert
Matthews offers another and milder explanation. "Fidel had a
boyish crush on Gaitan," he wrote. 7 Castro, then twenty-one,
had been a member of a Cuban terrorist organization and had
been arrested, though never convicted, in connection with a
murder perpetrated by that group.
It was arranged that if Ova res and Guevara finished in time,
they were to join the others at an open-air cafe a block from
Gaitan's office. By the time they got there Castro and del Pino
had already arrived. They all sat at the cafe and talked for about
an hour. Suddenly, at about 1 :20 P.M., shots were heard down
the block. Jorge Eliecer Gaitan had been gunned down as he
left his office by a drifter named Juan Roa Sierra, who had once
been an inmate of an insane asylum. Roa Sierra was immedi
ately beaten to death by witnesses of the crime, and a mob
dragged his battered body down the street past the cafe where
the four Cubans excitedly asked the crowd what was happening.
The murder of Gaitan touched off frenzied killing, burning,
and looting that virtually cut off Bogota from the rest of the
world for two days and took the lives of more than a thousand
persons. Before the rioting ended 150 buildings had been de
stroyed by well-organized arson squads carrying sprayers filled
with gasoline. Each arson unit had a leader and the leaders had
lists of buildings to be set on fire, some typewritten. There were
7 Matthews, p. 142.
few wooden structures in downtown Bogota. Buildings were
mostly of stone, brick, and stucco, and it called for skill to set
them on fire.
Ovares and Guevara decided to get off the street and go back
to their boarding house. Castro and del Pino headed for a radio
broadcasting station. At about 4 P.M. a street mob swept by the
boarding house shouting "A Palacio!" Castro was in it, carrying
a rifle and yelling hysterically that they were on their way to
kill the President. He stopped and tried to persuade Ovares and
Guevara to go along. They refused.
In the meantime Secretary of Embassy Rubottom had joined
the American Ambassador at the latter's home in a suburb,
Wieland remaining with a large group at the Embassy offices
downtown. As Beaulac and Rubottom were about to leave the
Embassy residence for the chancery, two priests entered the gar
den, escorting the youngest son of President Ospina. He was
given refuge.
The Embassy car in which Beaulac and Rubottom were rid
ing did not make it to the downtown offices. Its occupants aban
doned it and tried to get there on foot, but they were blocked
by the wild crowds that came surging toward them. They turned
and headed for an apartment building about a half-mile away
where many members of the American delegation were housed.
On the way they passed hardware and liquor stores that were
being systematically looted and observed in alarm that uni
formed and armed police had joined the rioters. The scene was
one of chaos and madness. From the roof of the apartment
building the Americans could see fires burning throughout the
city.
Earlier in the day, at approximately 2: 15 P.M., William D.
Pawley, U. S. Ambassador to Brazil and a conference delegate,
was riding in an official car when he heard and "remembers as
if it were yesterday," he wrote to me, the following broadcast:
This is Fidel Castro from Cuba. This is a Communist

revolution. The President has been killed. All the military
establishments are now in our hands. The Navy has capitu
lated to us and this revolution has been a success.
Pawley had previously served as Ambassador to Peru. The

name Fidel Castro did not mean anything to him at the time but
it caught his attention because Pawley had lived in Cuba for
many years, and also because a family photograph taken in
Cuba carried the signature of the photographer: Castro. These
circumstances impressed the name indelibly on his mind, and he
recalled it clearly when Castro broke into the news out of Cuba
in 1957-1958.
At the downtown Embassy offices a large American Embassy
delegation group had gathered, headed by Norman Armour,
Assistant Secretary of State and a conference delegate. The
chancery had surprisingly been able to maintain communications
with the State Department in Washington over a special system
that had been installed for the use of the American delegation.
Wieland, the political officer, checked with Beaulac before send
ing his reports to the Department.
During the first night of the uprising fires in the immediate
neighborhood of the Embassy offices increased in violence until
the ground floor of the Embassy building itself was ablaze, with
flames on the outside licking up to the third floor, where the
Embassy offices began. With Communist speakers screaming
over the radio that the United States was responsible for Gaitan's
murder and that the Foreign Minister of Colombia had taken
refuge in the American Embassy, the besieged group was in
grave danger. The Avianca airline offices, on the second floor
of the building, were entered and sacked, but the rioters were
stopped by a grilled door when they reached the third floor. By
a near-miracle the Embassy was saved; a paint store on the
northwest corner of the building did not catch fire. At 11 A.M.
the next morning Colombian army trucks finally reached the
Embassy offices. But it was two weeks before the last of the
snipers was eliminated.
Castro and del Pino returned to the Hotel Claridge during the
first night of rioting with a large quantity of arms and spent
many hours talking over the phone. They were holed up there
until April 13, when, with the Colombian police closing in, they
took refuge in the Cuban Embassy. The head of the Cuban dele
gation at the Conference, Dr. Guillermo Belt, arranged the es
cape of Castro and his companions on a Cuban cargo plane.
Both Secretary Marshall and President Ospina placed the
blame for the uprising squarely on the Communists, and before
breaking up, the Conference of the American States approved
an anti-Communist resolution by unanimous vote. A few weeks
later Colombia severed diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia.
Ambassador Beaulac has written that democracy in Colombia
"came within an ace of being destroyed" and that only the Com
munists could have gained from such an event.
After Castro became prominent in Cuba in 1958-1959, many

colorful versions of his participation in the uprising ten years
earlier were published. I have restricted myself to the clearly
established facts, largely as disclosed by a Scotland Yard inves
tigation requested by the Colombian government shortly after
the riots. Its report tells in some detail of the activities of Castro
and his student companions. Castro's activities established be
yond question his anti-American and pro-Communist conv.ic
tions as of 1948. They marked him as a gangster-type terrorist
and killer.
It was Dr. Belt who informed American Ambassador Earl E.
T. Smith, soon after his arrival in Havana in July 1957, of Cas
tro's involvement in the Bogota massacre. Naturally, Smith was
astonished that he had not been filled in on such vital back
ground information by Rubottom or Wieland. In view of Cas
tro's growing notoriety, he urged Dr. Belt to report the facts
personally to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and offered
the Embassy plane to fly him to Washington for this purpose.
For reasons which he has not been willing or able to disclose to
me Dr. Belt refused.
Incidentally, if he is still alive, del Pino, Castro's companion
in Bogota in 1948, is now serving a thirty-year prison sentence
in Cuba. In 1959, after Castro came to power, del Pino broke
with him and was caught by some of my Cuban friends attempt
ing to escape from the island in a small Cessna plane. Struck
by bullets and badly burned when the plane caught fire, he was
carried into a "court" on a stretcher and, on Castro's order,
given the thirty-year sentence.
What about Wieland and Rubottom in relation to Bogota?

By an astonishing coincidence, ten years after the Bogotazo
the fate of Cuba was largely in the hands of these two men.
The important Office of Middle American Affairs, of which
Wieland had been appointed Director on May 19, 1957, became
the Office of Caribbean and Mexican Affairs, while Rubottom
had become Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American
Affairs. Wieland's position permitted him to originate, initiate,
and recommend American policy. His views carried great weight
because, due to an unusual personnel set-up, they reached the
White House through only two men, both of whom were sympa
thetic to his ideas. The first was Rubottom, the highest career
officer directly occupied with Latin American affairs. The other
was Dr. Milton Eisenhower, Presidential adviser on Latin Amer
ican affairs. Dr. Eisenhower, who had never seen Cuba, has
described Rubottom as "one of the ablest and most forthright
men I have ever known." 8 And President Eisenhower has called
his brother Milton "the smartest one in the family." Thus, al
though Rubottom was fourth echelon in the State Department
hierarchy, and Wieland sixth (Rubottom's deputy played an
insignificant role), they had a short-cut to the White House.
Even if Milton Eisenhower had not been in the picture, the
officials above Rubottom would have mattered little so far as
Cuba was concerned. Inexperienced in Latin American affairs
and intensely preoccupied with other world areas, these officials
8 Milton Eisenhower, The Wine Is Bitter (New York: Doubleday &

Co., Inc., 1963), p. 204.
would not normally have been likely to oppose Wieland-Rubot
tom recommendations. The presence of the President's brother
made this even less likely.
In 1961-1962 a Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security
conducted a series of hearings which, among other things, delved
into the Bogotazo events. When questioned under oath, Wieland
was evasive. Asked whether he knew that numerous reports con
cerning Castro and identifying him as a Communist went either
over or around his desk during the Bogotazo, he replied that
he could not recalf.9
Q; You mean you know there were such reports but

you do not recall them?
A; There were such reports but I don't recall them now.
Q; Did you see any reports at that time about Fidel
Castro's connections with Communism?
A: I have since learned that there were such reports.
Q: Did you, Mr. Wieland, file any report or reports
with the State Department in Bogota on the youth con
ference in Bogota in April of 1948?
A: I would assume so, sir, but I don't remember.
Q: Did you mention Fidel Castro as among the Cuban
students who attended?
A: I may well have, again, sir, but I don't recalI.1°
On February 2, 1962, Wieland testified as follows:
Sir, I knew that Castro had been in Bogota; yes sir, I knew
that he had gone as a member of a Cuban student group to
some student gathering down there that I understand was
Communist dominated or Communist inspired. I knew that
he had been reported active in one way or another in the
disorders which took place in Bogota at the time, but what
degree of involvement I don't think I did know.
9 Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary to Investigate

Internal Security, Part 5, Testimony of William Wieland, January 9,
February 8, 1961; February 2, 1962. p. 638.
101bid., pp. 638, 639.
Wieland and Rubottom, of course, did not know, in 1948, the
full details of Castro's participation in the Bogotazo. But they
learned them later, from a great many intelligence sources. A
complete dossier on Castro, the Bogotazo, and the Communists
surrounding Castro, prepared by the G-2 of the Cuban Army,
was hand-carried to Washington in 1957 and delivered to Allen
Dulles, head of the CIA. Although Wieland claimed that he
never saw this specific report he admitted under oath that he
saw a great many intelligence reports dealing with Castro's Com
munist connections. Yet the investigating committee was unable
to document a single instance in which he transmitted any of
this solid intelligence to his superiors or mentioned it as credible
in any report or policy paper. 11
As our friendship developed, Ambassador Earl E. T. Smith

remarked to me one day that during his six-week briefing period
he had never heard a single word in the State Department that
was favorable to Batista or unfavorable to Castro. The nearest
remark favorable to Batista came from President Eisenhower
when Smith was taking his leave to undertake his post as Chief
of Mission at Havana. The President asked Smith, on presenting
his credentials, to give his regards to the Cuban President and
intimated that Smith would find Batista to be a likeable individ
ual in spite of what others may have told him.
But let us go back to the Cuban scene in 1957. Late that year
I was retained to negotiate the sale of the largest tract of land
in Cuba owned by a single individual. Known as the Hacienda
Sevilla, it comprised approximately 425 square miles and in
cluded the area of the Sierra Maestra Mountains where Castro
and his small rebel force spent a year and a half in hiding. This
vast tract had been mismanaged, due to absentee ownership, and
was occupied by thousands of squatters. We estimated its value
11 Senate Subcommittee of the Committee of the Judiciary, The Case

of William Wieland, 1962, p. 3.
at approximately one million dollars, and that was the asking
price.
One day I received a visit from one of the most feared men
in Cuba, a gangster known to be a cold-blooded killer. He had
been graduated from the University of Havana, where he was a
brilliant student, and he had been elected to public office. He
was reputed to have a small private army of his own in the east
ern area of the country. Murders and atrocities were attributed
to his force. When Batista came to power this man became his
friend and supporter, but his excesses embarrassed Batista and
brought the two men into conflict. I had never met my uninvited
visitor before.
He descended on our office without an appointment. He sta
tioned two bodyguards at the outer door, ignored the reception
ist, and walked down the long hall toward my office with two
more guards, whom he left in the inner reception room. He
entered my office unannounced and alone. Removing a pistol
from its holster and placing it on the arm of the large leather
chair in which he seated himself, he announced that he wished
to purchase the Hacienda Sevilla. He planned, he said, to parcel
out the entire tract to the farmers and squatters who now oc
cupied it in exchange for their cooperation in running down
Castro. He understood that our asking price was one million
dollars. I asked him if he was speaking for Batista and he said
he was not.
At my age, I told my caller, I did not have too long to live in
any case, so before engaging in any conversation I should like to
have him replace the pistol in its holster. He did so, explaining
with a smile that he had removed it for comfort while seated.
His proposition was that there should be an overpayment and
a "kickback." As I remember, the figure he mentioned was
$1,400,000, of which we could retain the million we were ask
ing. I replied that his suggestion did not offend me, that we were
not saints, but because of the nature of our clientele, which in
cluded the governments of the United States and Canada, we
had found it to be good business to conduct our affairs on an
ethical plane. We would not deviate from that policy, I assured
him. There were subsequent meetings and telephone calls that
stretched over a period of months, but because of the "kick
back" element the transaction was never consummated. The
man's first visit, naturally, had created quite a stir in our office,
and of course I reported his conversation to our senior lawyers
and our two managers.
I have often reflected on this incident. The plan made political
sense, and if carried out it would probably have finished Castro.
It was utterly impossible for Batista's army to track the tiny
rebel group in the immense expanse of the wooded mountains.
With the aid of thousands of montunos with a personal stake in
the enterprise, Castro undoubtedly could have been brought to
bay, but the gangster's venality closed that door.
However, had the plan been accepted and then failed to bring
down Castro, there is no doubt that I would have been executed
by a Castro firing squad. Although our firm forbade employees
to engage in political activities, two members of our staff were in
the Castro underground and were aware of my visitor's proposal.
Despite the occasional revolutionary violence, 1957 was a

peak year for the Cuban economy. As it drew to a close Havana
was busy, gay, and optimistic. Our firm was working at maxi
mum pitch. The Christmas parties at clubs and in private homes
throughout the country were marked by the high spirits for
which pre-Castro Cubans were famous. The only cloud on the
horizon was the pro-Castro press campaign in the United States.
I was especially conscious of this-and of the effect it was
having on the State Department-since American Foreign Ser
vice officers and FBI and CIA representatives sometimes spent ,
weekends at our Varadero beach house. Probably there were no
Cubans with closer and friendlier contacts in the American Em
bassy than Jorge de Cubas, my partner, and 1. We became in
creasingly aware of a serious and widening cleavage among
the members of the large Embassy staff.
Most of them were partial to Castro and his Movement. Oth
ers, and particularly the Ambassador himself, distrusted and
feared Castro. The staff divided along traditional conservative
and liberal lines. The Counsellor of Embassy, Military, Naval,
Air, and Commercial Attaches sided with the Ambassador. The
Political and CIA officers and most of the lower-echelon per
sonnel seemed favorable to Castro. It was natural that the Com
mercial Attache and his assistant should reflect the attitude of
the business and industrial community, which hoped for a con
tinuation of Cuban prosperity under strong government con
trol.
An Embassy friend on one occasion told me of having met
the Political Officer and a CIA representative emerging from
the Ambassador's office. He heard one of them say, white with
rage, "This is the first time I've been called a Communist to my
face!" Ambassador Smith would sometimes tease staff people
who were pro-Castro by asking them, tongue in cheek, whether
they were members of the 26th of July Movement. Some of
these men complained that his manner was at times abrupt, even
rude, and it angered them.
I am sure, looking back on that time, that the division had
less to do with facts and logic than with moods and tempera
ment. For his American partisans in Havana, and in Washing
ton as well, Castro was more a symbol than a person. In their
minds somehow the Cuban realities were transformed into a
morality play in which Batista stood for Evil and Castro for
Good. In the Embassy alignment I had a preview of the curi
ously diffuse American liberalism I have come to know better
since then in the United States.
Then, in January 1958, something happened that disturbed

my partner and me as a portent of things to come.
William Wieland arrived in Havana. An Embassy friend told
me that he had brought a prepared paper describing the Cuban
economy as in a state of serious deterioration, predicting that
Batista would soon be overthrown, and recommending that the
United States apply pressure on the Batista government to
hasten its end. The primary purpose of his visit was to obtain a
supporting paper from the Embassy along the same lines. In
fact, he and the Political Officer, known to be friendly to the
Castro Movement, were reported to have already drafted such a
report, painting the economy of the island in darkest colors and
foreseeing the early fall of the government. 12
We were somewhat relieved to learn that Ambassador Smith
had refused to permit the false assessment to go to Washington
from the Embassy. He decided to counteract Wieland's activi
ties in behalf of Castro by flying to Washington to submit an
accurate report. When Smith telephoned Rubottom, saying that
he wished personally to inform him on the economic and politi
cal situation, he was told that the Department did not have the
funds to pay for such a trip. Smith countered with an offer to
pay his own expenses, and the necessary travel orders were then
issued.
In talking to Earl Smith after his return, I sensed that he had
lost confidence in Wieland and was worried about the spread
of the Castro legend in high places generally. After his resigna
nation he told me of an occasion when, while recording a con
ference in Washington, Wieland had explained to him that more
important than sticking to the facts was that statements should
"look good on the record later."
What we did not know at that time, and what the Ambassador
himself probably did not realize, was that he was facing in
superable odds at the State Department. But what we did learn
a year before the fall of Batista was that a State Department
official in a key position in relation to Cuban affairs had pressed
the Havana Embassy for a report that Cuba's economy was
crumbling-this at a time of exceptional prosperity in the coun
try-to back up his prediction that the regime would soon col
lapse. It suggested that such a man might go very far to make
his prophecy come true.
12 Smith, pp. 58·59.

Former Ambassador Harry F. Guggenheim has kept a keen
eye and an intelligent mind on Cuba and Latin America. He has
pointed out that normally the President of the United States, the
Secretary of State, and the various Under Secretaries have little
time for the problems of Latin America. If a crisis develops, only
an Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
watches it unfold and makes the necessary judgments.
Yet Latin America is comparable to a great theater of war,
Mr. Guggenheim says, and deserves to have a diplomat equiva
lent to a five-star general in overall command. He should be a
statesman of international stature, with financial and economic
training and a lifelong experience in the affairs of that great the
ater. He should have the respect of American Ambassadors to
Latin American nations and the judgment and stature to back
them. Finally, he should be a firm supporter of the free enter
prise system, the great distinguishing characteristic of American
democracy, and hence prepared to safeguard private U.S. capital
in the area. Unfortunately-still paraphrasing the former Am
bassador-the State Department has never had an official direct
ing Latin American affairs who measured up to these demanding
specifications.
Certainly it did not have one in Roy R. Rubottom, Jr., when
the crisis of 1958 was taking shape. As his assistant on Cuban
affairs, moreover, Rubottom had Wieland, appointed to this
responsible post largely because he had lived in Cuba and spoke
Spanish. In addition, acting as Special Ambassador to Latin
America and enjoying the prestige of his relationship to the
President there was a liberal theorist and reformer, Dr. Milton
Eisenhower. The Department, immersed in other problems, left
supervision of the crucial Cuban developments almost entirely
to these three men. They were the policy-makers primarily re
sponsible for decisions that helped bring Castro to power.
I remarked earlier that Castro was lucky in making his debut

on the stage of American opinion set by Matthews of the Times.
That luck held in the men chosen by fate to sponsor his cause
in the American government. I am not casting doubts on the
sincerity or patriotism of these men. Each of them in his fashion
was seeking to guide events in line with his honest preferences.
But, as former Senator Kenneth B. Keating wrote, "The unfortu
nate Cuban people are the victims of tragic State Department
errors." 13 The fact that such errors were honestly motivated
makes them no less calamitous.
13 Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, The Case

01 William Wieltmd, 1962, p. 202.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
American Intervention
From his mountain hideout, on March 17, 1958, Fidel Castro

issued a bombastic manifesto. Although he then had fewer than
two hundred men under his command, he declared "total war"
against the Batista government. He gave army officers and en
listed men until April 5 to resign, on pain of forfeiting their right
to remain in the armed forces. He ordered judges of all Cuban
courts to resign forthwith. And he called for a "general revolu
tionary strike," to begin on April 9 and to be backed by military
action.
This manifesto seemed to us an absurd display of arrogance,
as indeed it was. The strike failed completely. The workers and
the middle class, who were doing well under Batista, refused to
support it. If any officers or judges resigned, no one heard about
it. Even the Communist Party (PSP) rejected and criticized the
Sierra Maestra document as a "unilateral cal1."
The lack of response seemed a setback for Castro, but not
for long. On March 14, three days before the manifesto was
issued, the United States had taken the first overt step that was
to help clear the path to dictatorship for Fidel Castro. On that
day, on the recommendation of William A. Wieland, l the State
Department placed an arms embargo against Batista, suspend
1 Report of Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary,

The Case of William Wieland (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing
Office, 1962), p. 97.
AMERICAN INTERVENTION 157
ing shipment of 1,950 Garand rifles which had been bought and
paid for by the Cuban Government and were at shipside ready
for delivery. It has now been established that Castro received
immediate word of this move by radio from his Washington
agent, who was in constant touch with Castro. In all probability
this dramatic American signal of policy intentions accounts for
Castro's seemingly senseless ultimatum.
To understand the significance of the arms embargo it is
necessary to go back seven weeks. Early in January, Ambassador
Earl E. T. Smith, with the approval of Rubottom and Wieland,
informed Batista that if he would restore constitutional guaran
tees and lift press censorship, the United States would deliver
twenty armored cars which had been on order for nine months.
Batista was eager to obtain them, not only because he needed
the equipment but even more because it would connote a friendly
American attitude.
The State Department offer, however, posed a serious problem
for him. Its acceptance would give important advantages to
terrorists. If apprehended, they would have to be presented to a
court within seventy-two hours and very likely would be re
leased. Saboteurs and terrorists could assemble freely to con
spire against him. The lifting of press censorship would magnify
every terrorist activity by giving it national publicity. Any
Cuban, and any person knowledgeable about Cuba, would have
known that restoration of such rights at that delicate juncture
would touch off a new round of violence.
Batista therefore made a counter-proposal. He had been
greatly concerned over aerial drops of supplies to the Castro
rebels and was convinced that ex-President Pdo, then in the
United States, was organizing and financing this traffic. He felt
that if Washington would control Pdo, he could readily cope
with Castro. Accordingly he asked that, in addition to delivering
the armored cars, the United States curtail Pdo's activities by
enforcing its neutrality laws.
In this connection, Ambassador Smith asked the State De
partment to arrange for William F. Tompkins, Assistant At.
torney General, to visit Havana. Smith and Tompkins met with
Batista at his country home, Finca Kuquine. Although the Am
bassador made it clear at this conference that there was to be
no formal quid pro quo arrangement, a gentlemen's understand
ing was reached.
Batista fulfilled his part by restoring constitutional guarantees
on January 25, 1958. But at the American end there was only
a meaningless gesture. In mid-January the Department of Jus
tice obtained a Grand Jury indictment against Prio. He was
immediately released on bail, the case against him was not
pressed, the aerial drops to reinforce Castro continued. As a
crowning touch, Rubottom and Wieland reneged on their prom
ise-the armored cars were never delivered.
As Batista had anticipated, terrorist activities were resumed.
In the ensuing weeks bombs exploded in theaters, stores, and
streets, killing and maiming innocent people. In the countryside
tbe night skies were lighted by the flames of burning sugar cane
fields, set afire by tying gasoline-soaked rags to the tails of rats
released into the dry undergrowth. Commercial planes were hi
jacked, and an international automobile race was exploited to
get publicity for the anti-Batista movement.
This race, scheduled for February as a tourist attraction, had
brought together many world-famous drivers. The night before
the event, Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentina's five-time world
champion, was kidnaped at pistol point by revolutionists. He
was released the next day, unharmed, but the daring stunt hit
the front pages all over the world. Even more embarrassing to
the authorities was an accident caused by the spraying of oil
near a curve on a crowded street; a car skidded into the crowd,
killing six and injuring about fifty and Castro was given the
"credit."
These incidents brought government retaliation and, as the
terror mounted, it became clear that Batista had no choice but
again to suspend the guarantees. Even Dr. Marquez Sterling,
AMERICAN INTERVENTION 15'
Batista's most formidable political opponent, so informed the
American Ambassador in my presence.
The interval of seven weeks between the restoration of con
stitutional rights and their suspension-January 25 to March
12-had been long enough to permit the delivery of the armored
cars. Had that American undertaking been carried out, it might
in fact have prevented or postponed the suspension. In any case,
Batista's action provided a post-factum alibi for withholding the
equipment and, as a more vigorous reaction, the State Depart
ment on March 14 stopped the shipment of the Garand rifles.
The Department did instruct Ambassador Smith to advise
the Cuban Government that this action did not indicate a change
in basic U.S. policy but had been taken under pressures from
the press and Congress. Among the more vocal Congressmen on
behalf of Castro was Adam Clayton Powell, of New York, who
was urging immediate recognition of a regime headed by Castro
and the recall of Earl Smith as Ambassador. Smith complied
with Department instructions but he did not believe what he had
been told to say. "I knew that after March 12 this was not true,"
he has written. 2 On March 17, in fact, he called the Embassy
staff together and told them there had apparently been a change
of United States policy toward Cuba.
The arms embargo marked the second of the main events that
brought Castro to power, the first having been the Matthews
articles in The New York Times. The Cuban Government, of
course, recognized its enormous significance. Its ordnance,
which included 1903-mode1 rifles and surplus U.S. arms of
World War 1 vintage, was almost entirely obsolete. Batista was
planning a drive against the Castro rebels, and as one of the
cabinet members told the Ambassador: "Our troops cannot
fight with toothpicks." Batista himself told the Ambassador that
his government would now be fighting for its life against Com
2 Earl E. T. Smith, The Fourth Floor (New York: Random House,

1962), p. 88.
munist revolutionaries, and hardly a day passed that the stag
gering effect of the embargo was not brought to the Ambassa
dor's attention. 3
Earl Smith strongly urged Washington not to pUblicize the
suspension of arms shipments. He argued that if Batista should
fall after such publicity the United States would be blamed for
what would follow. "And the only ones who will benefit," he
cabled, "will be the Communists." 4
Nevertheless the anus embargo was publicized in The New
York Times on March 29. Wieland claims that although he had
been in the habit of "leaking" information to the press, espe
cially to the Times, this particular news did not come from him.
In any case, its effect was devastating and its meaning was
grasped even by well-informed people in the United States.
"When in March 1958," wrote Betty Kirk in The Nation, "ship
ment of military supplies to Batista was canceled . . . this was
a signal, understood by all, that the dictator was on his way out
and Castro was in." 5 Wieland himself later attested under oath
that when it became known in Cuba that the United States was
refusing to ship arms to Cuba, the Batista government was "in
its last moments." 6
In addition to the armored cars and Garand rifles, the Cuban
Government had bought and paid for a few non-combat training
planes and had ordered replacement parts for combat equip
ment. Ambassador Smith worked hard to obtain shipment clear
ance for the planes, which were already in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida. Finally, over the objection of Wieland, who argued that
they would be armed and used against the rebels, Smith ob
tained authority to notify Batista that the planes would be de
livered. Because of its political implications, Batista received the
3 Ibid., p. 107.
4 Ibid., p. 91.
5 Report of Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the JUdiciary,
The Case of William Wieland, p. 140.
6 Hearings before the last-mentioned Subcommittee. Testimony of
William Wieland, Part 5, 1962, p. 659.
AMERICAN INTERVENTION .'1
assurance with great satisfaction. However, although a bill for
storage and servicing of the planes was submitted to the Cuban
Government, neither the planes nor the spare parts were ever
delivered.
During the balance of the year Smith repeatedly recommended
that the shipment of arms be renewed, reminding the State De
partment that he was constantly asking the Cuban Government
to protect American property. He spelled it out, listing U.S.
plants that had been damaged by Castro supporters. On one oc
casion, when Smith asked Batista for troops to be sent to the
two great American-owned nickel plants, Batista facetiously an
swered that he would gladly assign a thousand men to each if
the United States would send him his rifles. Adequate troops
were sent, nevertheless. And Batista continued to cooperate in
other ways; whenever Ambassador Smith asked the President
for Cuba's vote in the United Nations it was willingly given.
Finally, to save face and, as he said, to avoid further embar
rassment to Washington, Batista canceled all orders that had
been placed in the United States and turned elsewhere for arms.
But when other governments which he approached made in
quiries at the State Department, they were bluntly apprised that
the United States would look with disfavor on the sale of arms
to the Cuban Government. Batista rightly regarded this as in
tervention in behalf of Castro. 7
After some delay Cuba did manage to buy some war materiel
from the Dominican Republic and a few other countries, but it
was an assortment of miscellaneous items that probably did
more harm than good. In particular, it emphasized the country's
inability to arm itself with the traditional American weapons
that had always been used previously.
Further harassment by the State Department was generated

through a technicality of the Military Defense Assistance Pro
gram (MDAP). Under this program the United States gives
7 Smith, p. 100.
military aid to Latin American countries, largely in the form of
obsolescent weaponry that is gradually discarded to make way
for the latest models. Cuba's best military equipment had been
obtained under its MDAP agreement with the United States,
consummated in 1952 during the Pdo administration.
The MDAP agreements with Latin American countries con
tained unenforceable, window-dressing provisions, theoretically
designed to forestall use of these arms in civil conflicts. One was
that the equipment should be used only for hemispheric defense.
Another was that the United States would have to agree to such
use. Wieland and Rubottom saw in these provisions another op
portunity to weaken the Batista government.
The State Department suddenly began questioning Cuba on
the use being made of MDAP weapons. This came as a com
plete surprise to Batista, who made discreet inquiries among his
staff officers. Rumors as to the reason for this investigation
permeated the army with the speed of poisoned arrows, just as
its instigators in Washington doubtless had foreseen, with shat
tering effect on military morale.
Batista answered that the arms had been deployed throughout
the army, but the State Department learned that the best Cuban
infantry battalion had been equipped with these arms. It called
attention to this, pointing out that MDAP arms could be used
only for hemispheric defense. Batista replied that this was pre
cisely the use being made of them-to fight Communist intru
sion in the hemisphere.
Repeatedly, both through the Cuban Embassy in Washington
and the American Embassy in Havana, the State Department
continued to charge what it said were violations of the MDAP
agreement. It stepped up the harassment by asking Batista to
withdraw from his fight against Castro all personnel equipped
with MDAP weapons. It demanded that Batista break up and
retire from active service in the combat area the crack infantry
battalion that it declared was wholly equipped with MDAP arms.
Finally it submitted a formal note to the Cuban Government,
bringing these IIlfttters to its atre9tion and asking for a report.
When Batista delayed answering, Ambassador Smith was in
structed to inquire when a reply could be expected. To his
credit, Batista did not submit to the American demands. Never
theless, the Washington pressures hastened the demoralization
of the Cuban Army.
These were not the only steps taken by the State Department
to topple the Cuban Govermnent. It requested the Department
·of Justice and the Immigration Service to deal sympathetically
;with Castro supporters in the United States, who were then
engaged in raising funds, propagandizing, and furnishing arms
and men to the Castro cause. The leader of these activities, ex
President Pdo, had been admitted to the United States on parole
status; if he violated the American neutrality laws his right of
sojourn in the United States would be automatically revoked.
Yet he operated with impunity; the February indictment against
him was not pursued. Applications of Cuban exiles sympathetic
to Castro to remain in the United States received favorable
action. s
Rubottom and Wieland maintained cordial contacts with
Castro representatives, including his principal spokesman, Er
nesto Betancourt, who had once been employed by my firm in
a clerical position. They maintained an almost day-to-day con
tact with Herbert Matthews, who continued to use the influential
columns of his newspaper to discredit a friendly government and
support the Castro rebels. Despite all these pressures, Batista
managed to maintain control.
On the surface he seemed to be experiencing no insurmount
able difficulties. During most of 1958 the Cuban people lived
their lives and carried on their occupations in an almost com
pletely normal manner, except in the eastern province of Oriente.
Incidents that made headlines occurred only spasmodically. The
sugar mills, on which Cuba's economy mainly depends, were
grinding as usual in the early part of the year, and the crop was
in no danger. In Havana business remained good. Our firm was
8lbid.• p. 117.
handling several important industrial projects in process of con
struction; on Saturdays and Sundays there were often lawyers
in our offices catching up on their work.
'There were many rumors, of course. We heard that the num
ber of rebels in the Castro group was growing, that youths from
various parts of the island were heading into the mountains. But
we learned later, from Castro's own statement, that this was
false-that in April 1958 he had only 180 men under his com
mand. We also heard that a group from Havana University's
Directorio Revolucionario had opened a second front in the
Escambray Mountains in Las Villas Province, operating inde
pendently of Castro. The government declared that they posed
no threat and reports of their activities attracted little attention.
Castro, who remained in the hills with his little band of fol
lowers, became an object of increasing speculation. At no time,
as yet, had he challenged government forces militarily, but the
interviews by Americans continued to glorify him. Representa
tives of the U.S. press who visited Cuba briefly were relentless
in their condemnation of Batista, unrestrained in eulogizing
Castro. Usually they avoided the American Embassy, knowing
that Ambassador Smith's views were in conflict with their own
preconceptions. Their minds were closed. It was more comfort
able to join the rolling bandwagon by ridiculing Smith without
giving him a hearing. One wrote that the State Department
should instruct its Ambassadors to contact American corre
spondents and obtain the benefit of their "man-in-the-street
savvy." Eventually, after Smith had left Cuba, only one news
man, as far as I know, publicly admitted having been mistaken.
Noting in the New York Daily News that Smith had not been
congratulated for his analysis of Castro "by any of us who
rapped him at the time," Ed Sullivan wrote: "But Smith was
right and everybody else was wrong." 9
While the tempo of Cuban life seemed normal in the early
part of 1958, news of the arms embargo actually was having a
9 New York Daily News, January 12, 1959.

profound and cumulative impact. Public sentiment began to
swing against Batista. I was urged by one of the cabinet minis
ters to go to Washnigton to try to induce the American Govern
ment to change its policy. Knowing that Ambassador Smith had
failed in this, it was clear to me that the mission would be hope
less, and I declined. But few of us regarded the overall situation
as entirely hopeless, and we worked to find a solution.
There is still a widespread misconception in the United States

that Cubans had a choice only between Batista and Castro-
that there were no reasonable and practical alternatives. This is
untrue. During 1957 and 1958 at least six plans were submitted
to Washington, aiming at political solutions that offered alterna
tives to both Batista and Castro. to
The Catholic Church developed a plan providing for a pro
visional "Government of Unity." The Papal Nuncio had meet
ings with the Ambassador in hopes of enlisting Washington's
"moral support" before approaching Batista and Castro. Despite
the impressive sponsorship, the State Department refused even
such token cooperation.
Batista had been elected President the last time in 1954 and
had been inaugurated February 25, 1955. Now, in 1958, his
four-year term of office was drawing to a close, and elections
were scheduled for June 1. Under the 1940 Constitution Batista
could not succeed himself. Dr. Carlos Marquez Sterling was the
leading Presidential candidate in opposition to any government
supported candidate, and everyone believed that in a fair con
test under normal conditions he would command the support
of the vast majority of the voters. "Carlitos," as he was affec
tionately known throughout the island, was popular and re
spected by all classes of Cuban society. In early March 1958 he
told me that he would like to meet the American Ambassador,
who agreed at once to the interview.
At our meeting we told Smith that we considered it necessary
10 Smith, p. 17S.
for the government again to suspend constitutional guarantees in
the interests of stability and to prepare a climate appropriate
for the holding of elections. Further, we believed the elections
should be postponed until November. 1 remember Carlitos tell
ing the Ambassador, "I know Castro as 1 know the palm of my
right hand, and I can assure you that, much as I distrust Batista,
Castro would be ten times worse." The Ambassador inquired
whether he might repeat that statement to his government as
coming from him and Carlitos answered, "Of course."
We discussed the plan developed by the Catholic Church.
Carlitos said that if the Church obtained the backing of Cuban
civic organizations and was able to induce the government to
create an atmosphere conducive to free elections, there was a
good chance this would be the solution; but it was indispensable
that Washington give the program its blessing. Castro would
certainly oppose free elections, knowing that even if Batista were
defeated, authority would pass to someone other than himself.
His strategy was to prevent elections. Dr. Marquez Sterling made
it clear to the Ambassador that he was not personally ambitious
and would gladly withdraw his candidacy if the political opposi
tion decided on someone else.
We also discussed a plan that called for Batista to leave the
country after naming a caretaker government representing all
political factions, including the Castro group, with elections to
be held under the supervision of the United Nations or the
American Bar Association. Its essential feature was that the
United States announce a willingness to resume arms shipments
timed with Batista's departure, and an intention to recognize any
government that resulted from free and honest elections. The
Ambassador expressed doubt that Washington would go along
with any such plan, and Smith later told me that our various
suggestions had been rejected on the principle of "non-interven
tion." Thus, from a personal experience, it became evident to
me, nine months before the fall of Batista, that the Department
of State was determined to thwart any action that might obstruct
Castro's assumption of power.
Little was asked of the State Department whenever a plan
was presented. All that was required was a statement indicating
its awareness of the plan and a hope that it would succeed. In
every instance Ambassador Smith pleaded for an affirmative
reply, stressing the threat of Communism; in every case the min
imum support needed was withheld. A negative cable always
came back from Rubottom, invoking the principle of "non-inter
ventio~." The alibi was plainly fraudulent. The Department had
already intervened with the arms embargo and was intervening
continuously by its tolerance of Castroite partisan activities in
the United States.
Because the coming elections were crucial, Ambassador Smith
suggested to Batista that he invite the world press and observers
from the United Nations and the Organization of American
States to witness them. The two opposition candidates at the
time were ex-President Grau San Martin and Dr. Marquez
Sterling. Batista accepted the Ambassador's suggestion, asking
only that Grau and my cousin join in the request. They agreed
with some reluctance, feeling that outside supervision implied an
impairment of national sovereignty. The request to the United
Nations for observers was subsequently made, but it came late
and was never implemented.
The second most influential political force in Cuba, after the

army, was organized labor. It had consistently supported Ba
tista because of his pro-labor policies. In March 1958 my part
ner had a visit from Cuba's most powerful labor leader, Eusebio
Mujal, head of the Cuban Confederation of Workers (CTC).
Mujal, obviously worried, wanted to know whether the United
States had adopted a new attitude toward Batista. If that were
the case, he said, he would announce the withdrawal of the sup
port of labor and would leave the country. In that event Batista
would have fallen at once.
Although we were by then aware that there had been a policy
change, we decided to consult the Ambassador before answer
ing Muja!. Earl Smith thought it best to tell Mujal that the atti
tude of the United States had not changed-"that the United
States did not change its relations with a friendly government
simply because that government was facing a serious crisis." 11
It was a tongue-in-cheek reply but this was the message given to
Mujal, and Batista continued to have the support of Cuban
labor.
In the same month, Ambassador Smith twice received visits
from Herbert Matthews. The Times man took the position that
the United States had already intervened in Cuban internal af
fairs by trying to obtain free and honest elections. He could not
understand why the Batista government had not already fallen
and expressed concern on this score. 12
Postponed from June I, the general elections were held on

November 3, 1958, under conditions that were far from normal.
From the mountains Castro called for the assassination of all
candidates, whether of the government or the opposition. Citi
zens who lined up at polling places on election day, he threat
ened, would be machine-gunned. Nevertheless, it proved to be
an extraordinarily quiet election. There were few people on the
streets and little traffic.
The government-supported candidate was Dr. Andres Rivero
Agiiero and the government announced before midnight that he
had won a sweeping victory. The opposition candidates, Dr.
Grau San Martin and my cousin, claimed that Batista had rigged
the elections through vote buying and the use of patronage. Jobs
were promised or threats made that jobs would be taken away,
and there had been wholesale ballot fraud, they said. Batista
and his supporters denied this. The President had given repeated
pledges to Ambassador Smith that the elections would be con
ducted honestly. Some believed that the combination of a small
proportion of the popular vote and the always solid turnout of
11 Ibid., p. 10 1.
12 Ibid., pp. 93, 94.

government employees made it unnecessary for Batista to rig
the election.
In Spanish, a diminutive word usually ends with the suffix
"ito" and an augmentive with the suffix "azo." Thus the 1948
Communist uprising in Bogota, Colombia, became known as the
Bogotazo. In Cuba the Batista opponents dubbed the 1958 elec
tion the cambiazo, from the verb cambiar, meaning to change or
alter. But whether the election was honest or fraudulent, it was
at this point that hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Cubans
turned hopefully toward the little-known rebel in the hills.
In late November my partner and I learned from a responsible

and confidential source in the United States that William D.
Pawley, the former Ambassador to Peru and Brazil and a per
sonal friend of President Eisenhower, was about to be sent as a
secret emissary to negotiate with Batista. Our information was
that he would be authorized to offer Batista an opportunity to
live with his family in Daytona Beach, Florida, if he would ap
point a "caretaker government" composed of five men who were
his political opponents. This represented a complete reversal of
the policy supported up to that time by Rubottom and Wieland,
under which all plans had been arbitrarily ruled out. It was an
astonishing but heartening report.
We also learned the State Department intended to call Smith
to Washington without advising him of the plan, and we debated
whether we should tell him about it. Because we had developed
a high regard for the Ambassador, having been impressed by his
courage and perseverance in working against great odds for
rational solutions, we decided to be forthright with him. On
Thanksgiving Day 1958, at .the Havana Country Club, I in
formed him of the decision to send a secret emissary to Cuba to
negotiate with Batista. I also gave him the names of the men
who were to be suggested for the caretaker government.
Earl Smith was surprised by this news but could make no
comment. On December 4 he was summoned to Washington for
consultation. Not until December 10 was he informed by Deputy
Under Secretary Robert Murphy that Batista had been ap
proached the day before. The Ambassador was not given the
name of the emissary or the result of the interview. When Smith
disclosed to Rubottom the detailed information I had given him,
asking if he could confirm it, Rubottom remained silent. 13 After
Smith's return to Havana and prior to an interview he had re
quested with Batista, he again asked Rubottom by cable if Ba
tista had been approached on the subject of leaving Cuba. He
received no reply.
Pawley was the ideal emissary to send to Havana. Sixty-four
years of age, he had lived and worked in Latin America most of
his life and had actually resided in and out of Cuba more than
thirty years. He had known Batista well and had gained his re
spect. Pawley had had a highly successful business career. He
had organized the first Cuban aviation company, built three
aircraft factories in China that produced 90 percent of the air
craft used by the Nationalist Government in its struggle against
the Communist regime, and built India's first and only aircraft
factory, employing 15,000 mechanics. Three years later he built
India's first ammonium-sulfate plant. Subsequently he organized
an autobus system in Havana that permitted the Cuban Govern
ment to beautify the city by removing streetcars, streetcar tracks,
posts and wires from its streets. At this writing he is the president
of an important Florida sugar company.
In the political field Pawley also had a distinguished career.
He organized the legendary Flying Tigers in China, dealt with
Chinese leaders such as Chiang Kai-shek, and served as a Spe
cial Assistant to Secretary of State Dean Acheson and General
Marshall. He became the American Ambassador to Peru and
later to Brazil, where he had on his staff as press attache William
Wieland, whom he distrusted. At the request of President Tru
man he organized the Ninth Inter-American Conference in Bo
gota, which was almost wrecked by the bloody Communist
13 Ibid., p. 168.
inspired Bogotazo. After that he had successfully carried out
important assignments in Europe, including obtaining Franco's
approval for the American military bases in Spain.
Conservative and intelligent, Pawley was one of the first
prominent Americans to become sensitive to the Communist
threat in both China and Latin America. He strongly opposed
the policies of Dean Acheson and his advisory group-Latti
more, Vincent, Service, Davies, and others--who regarded the
Chinese Communists under Mao Tse-tung as "agrarian reform
ers." Because he was a political appointee, however, many of
the closely-knit group of career officers of the State Department
regarded him as an outsider. They also took offense at the candor
with which he expressed his convictions.
As a counterweight, Pawley had the advantage of a personal
friendship with President Eisenhower. The President offered to
appoint him Under Secretary of State for Latin American Af
fairs, a new post designed to upgrade the importance of the
area, but withdrew the offer after strong opposition by the
career professionals in the Department. 14
In late 1958 Pawley was at his home in Miami Beach, increas
ingly alarmed at the prospect of a Castro-Communist take-over
in Cuba. In the publicity buildup for Castro as a democrat and
"agrarian reformer," he saw a repetition of the techniques used
to impose Communism on China. He knew that planes and ships
were leaving Florida with arms for Castro, with Federal agents
closing their eyes to the illegal traffic. His views paralleled
those of Ambassador Smith in Havana, but while Smith neces
sarily had to work from the bottom up or be removed from
office, Pawley decided to work from the top down. Both met the
same road-block.
Pawley has written me that he had four or five meetings with
President Eisenhower in an effort to persuade him that Castro
14 Former Ambassador Pawley has certified that all references to him

in this chapter are accurate. The chapter was also submitted to the Office
of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and
the references to the President were approved.
In DAGGER IN THE HEART
was a Communist and should not be permitted to come to
power. At about the same time the CIA had finally concluded
that a Castro victory might not be in the best interests of the
United States. Allen Dulles, Director of the CIA, reported to the
President that Communists had penetrated the Castro movement
and that "if Castro takes over, they will probably participate in
the government." 15
The President was always sympathetic to Pawley's views and
in each case arranged meetings for him with State Department
officials. Pawley met with Rubottom, Wieland, Douglas Dillon,
and others, and occasionally with Allen Dulles. He reminded
Rubottom and Wieland that they had been in Bogota at the time
of the Communist bid for power in 1948, in which Castro had
participated, and that regardless of what Castro might now be
saying, it would be extremely dangerous to permit him to come
to power. To them he did not make any plea for Batista, know
ing that it would be useless. But since Batista's term expired
in a few weeks, he argued, nothing would be lost by holding out
until a new government came in, opening the door for a possible
satisfactory political negotiation. Pointing his finger at Wieland,
Pawley said, "Ii you permit Castro to come to power, you are
going to have more trouble than you have ever seen in your
li/e." 16
According to Pawley, both Rubottom and Wieland stuck to
the myth that Castro was an agrarian reformer and, in their
opinion, not a Communist. Having fought a hard but losing fight
against such "agrarian reformers" in China, Pawley was un
willing to have his country make the same mistake twice. He
was deeply convinced that Cuba was about to be turned over to
the Communists by men like Rubottom, Wieland, and Matthews,
just as he felt China had been turned over to Mao Tse-tung by
15 Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace

(New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1965), p. 521.
The Case of William Wieland, 1962, p. 109.
confused or ideologically motivated men in the State Depart
ment.
The time had come, Pawley decided, to forget the branches
and dig at the roots of the Cuban problem. The solution, he
felt, was to have Wieland removed from his jurisdiction over
Caribbean problems. He therefore returned to President Eisen
hower, reporting that his efforts had failed and asking the Presi
dent to arrange an interview for him with the Under Secretary of
State, Douglas Dillon. Fearing that the conversation might be
incorrectly recorded by the State Department, he asked Eisen
hower to permit him to invite Senator George Smathers of
Florida to the meeting. The President agreed.
On arriving for the conference Pawley and Smathers found
that Ambassador Leslie Mallory, Rubottom's deputy and Wie
land's immediate superior, was present. Pawley presented to the
Under Secretary the considerable background information he
had on Wieland. Smathers related a supporting experience of his
own in which Wieland was involved. Pawley suggested that Wie
land be removed from his Caribbean area duties and replaced
by someone with less pro-Castro bias.
Secretary Dillon replied that he had no fear of Castro, that
the real problem was dictator Trujillo, whom they were about
to go after. Time enough to worry about Castro later, he said.
Mallory expressed resentment of the "outside pressure." Had
he intended to make a change, he said, such interference would
cause him to recommend that nothing be done about it. Pawley
left the meeting thoroughly convinced that the Rubottom-Wie
land policy of promoting Castro to the limit had the full support
of the State Department. Discouraged and depressed, he re
turned to Miami and told his wife that Cuba would soon be lost
to Communism.
But he did not give up. Shortly afterward he arranged a
meeting at his home with a few high officials of the Latin Ameri
can Division of the State Department, including former Assistant
Secretary of State Henry Holland. A representative of the CIA
was present, and they discussed the impasse far into the night. In
view of Pawley's close relationship with President Eisenhower,
it was decided that he should return to Washington and ask the
President to authorize him to go to Havana and try to persuade
Batista to capitulate to a provisional government which would
be friendly to neither himself nor Castro. Eisenhower agreed
and instructed the State Department to work out a program of
fering inducements to make the proposal attractive to Batista.
For several days Pawley worked with officials of the Depart
ment, evolving a plan which included making available $10 mil
lion in armaments to the caretaker government as soon as
it was constituted. Batista and his family and close friends
would be permitted to reside in Florida. No reprisals would be
taken in Cuba against Batista followers by the new government
and elections would take place within eighteen months. After
the elections the courts would be free to prosecute anyone in
volved in fraud or other crimes during the Batista regime.
The key aspect of the plan was that Pawley would be author
ized to speak for President Eisenhower. That would remove the
proposal from the category of "suggestions," which Batista was
receiving aplenty, and give it the character of a proposal from
the highest quarter.
Rubottom requested that before leaving for Cuba, Pawley
meet with him once more. At this final meeting, at which a
large group was present, including Wieland, Pawley was told
that there had been "a modification." He was not to disclose to
Batista that he was speaking in behalf of the President. He was
to advance the plan merely as his own idea, saying that if it was
acceptable to Batista, he would then try to persuade the Ameri
can Government to go along with it.
Rubottom said that the new instructions had been approved
by Secretary of State Herter, and Pawley knew from experi
ence that the President would not override a decision of the
Secretary of State. He saw at once that this change deprived
him of his most persuasive talking point. He would now be
only one of the many personal friends who were constantly
offering advice to Batista. He argued with some vehemence
against the revision. But Rubottom insisted that the change was
basic and irreversible, since it was the decision of the Secretary
of State. Deeply discouraged once again, Pawley debated
whether to undertake the mission at all, but in the end he de
cided to work on.
In Havana he first reviewed the proposal in a four-hour inter
view with Gonzalo Giiell, Cuba's Foreign Minister, enlisting his
support. Then he met with Batista. His interview with the Cuban
President lasted three hours. Batista said that he had lost all
faith in officials of the American State Department, and felt
certain that they would not agree to any constructive plan. He
implored Pawley to do his best to persuade them to stop inter
fering in Cuban affairs and permit the new government to take
over in March, after which, he said, any changes the Americans
sought could be obtained. Pawley returned to Washington and
reported to the President that his mission had failed.
Within a month Batista had capitulated and left Cuba. He
telephoned Pawley from the Dominican Republic, inviting him
to come over. When he learned for the first time that Pawley's
interview with him in Cuba had been authorized by President
Eisenhower, he said sadly that if this had been made clear at
their Havana conference, he would undoubtedly have agreed to
the program. "I believe," Pawley subsequently wrote me, "that
the deliberate overthrow of Batista by Wieland and Matthews,
assisted by Rubottom, is almost as great a tragedy as the sur
rendering of China to the Communists by a similar group of
Department of State officials fifteen or sixteen years ago and we
will not see the end in cost of American lives and American
resources for these tragic errors."
The Pawley plan was the last of six or seven submitted to

the State Department. Programs developed by the Catholic
Church, civic organizations, and others, aiming at political solu
tions that would eliminate both Batista and Castro, had been
rejected. Castro was not the only alternative to Batista, yet in
each case the State Department had withheld its support on the
principle of "non-intervention."
Yet on December 14, 1958, the State Department did for
mally intervene to oust Batista and bring in Castro. Ambassa
dor Smith was instructed to advise the President that he no
longer had the support of the United States and that he should
leave Cuba.17
The Ambassador's instructions from Rubottom were crystal
clear. Shorn of meaningless adornment, they were that he tell
Batista to get out of his country. He was to say that the United
States appreciated Batista's past friendship and cooperation and
was aware of his many contributions to Cuban history but that
it had now, for humanitarian reasons, reluctantly decided to
withdraw its support. The Ambassador was to maintain the fic
tion that the United States was not intervening in Cuba's in
ternal affairs, although advising Batista to leave. These instruc
tions were not sent through regular channels but in coded wire
less, presumably so as not to leave a record in the Department.
The cards were down, and Smith immediately made the de
cision known to the Foreign Minister, asking for an appoint
ment with the President.
The dramatic interview took place during the night of De
cember 17, 1958. Smith has written that Batista still exuded an
air of strength as he sat across the room without the slightest
sign of emotion, his piercing dark eyes never leaving the Am
bassador's face. He inquired whether he might go with his fam
ily to his home in Daytona Beach and was told he should first
spend some time in Spain or some other foreign country. He
asked how much time he had and was told not to delay his de
parture unduly. He spoke of the possibility of setting up a mili
tary junta and was told that it was too late. Batista repeated
what he had often said before. But this time he said when-not
if-Castro took over, the United States would be faced with
11Smith, pp. 169-174.

Communism in Cuba: "Your country has intervened in behalf
of the Castros." 18
This interview brought about the fall of the Batista govern
ment, which Castro could never have accomplished militarily
without State Department support.
In his report of the interview to the State Department, Smith
said that he was certain Batista would accept any solution. He
added that the Catholic Church would go to any lengths to
bring about peace and asked for permission to contact the Papal
Nuncio. He recommended that the Organization of American
States be requested to support mediation by the Church, re
iterating once again his conviction that if the United States
permitted Castro to take over the Government of CUba, the
only beneficiaries would be the Communists. The State Depart
ment remained adamant.
During the following days several proposed solutions were
received from the Cuban Government and submitted to Wash
ington. One was that the day after his inauguration the Presi
dent-elect, Dr. Rivero Agiiero, would call for new general elec
tions to take place within four to six months, to fill all elective
posts, including the Presidency. Observers from the UN and
OAS, as well as the world press, were to be invited to assure a
free and honest franchise. The Cuban Government asked only
that the United States begin shipping promptly the armament
and materiel it had bought and paid for, to permit it to fight
Castro and what it considered the Communist threat. This plan
was submitted to Washington by Ambassador Smith, with a
strong recommendation that it be accepted. It was rejected. The
position of the State Department was that there could be no
solution so long as Batista remained in Cuba. 19
According to Smith, "I was not permitted to hold up before
him any prospect of appropriate United States backing for a
solution which would have the genuine support of the people of
Islbid., p. 174.
19lbid., p. 181.

his country. . I had dealt him a mortal blow. . . . I knew
it was now too late to set up a government without Castro ...
if support from the United States was not forthcoming. For
twelve months before the ship of state had foundered there
were occasions when solutions to the Cuban problem could have
been obtained. I recalled the unanimous view expressed by rep
resentatives of American business in Havana . . . when they
asked me to advise the State Department that the Castro move
ment was Communist-inspired and dominated. 'It was incon
ceivable,' they said, 'that the United States could assist Castro
by silently standing by and permitting Castro to triumph.' The
United States had done more than stand silently by. It had dip
lomatically, but clearly, told the President of the Republic that
he should absent himself from his country." 20
Batista left Cuba two hours after midnight on the New Year's
Eve that ushered in 1959. His ambition to retain power had
contributed to his downfall. Yet he was not the ruthless dictator
that the American press reported him to be.
During the closing weeks and days of 1958 the activities of

the rebels in the eastern and central part of Cuba had expanded
enormously. Batista's army was no longer resisting. Terrorism
and sabotage were rampant. Thirty to forty railway inspectors
in the interior were reporting daily to our client, Consolidated
Railways, whose Havana office was located on the floor directly
below ours. In this way we were well informed on the rapid
collapse of the resistance forces. Each day we prepared a report
of railway bridges sabotaged and destroyed and of other acts of
terrorism reported by the inspectors. These were given to the
American Embassy, which in turn transmitted them to Washing
ton.
In spite of these developments, I have always felt that when
Batista fled the island on January 1, 1959, Castro was the most
surprised of all the Cubans. Guevara later said the news had
20 Ibid., pp. 173-176.

been "astonishing." 21 Castro was totally unprepared to take over
and his critics say that at first he did not dare even to come to
Havana. His defenders claim that the slow march to Havana
was deliberate dramatization.
In Havana the crowds were in the streets and there was loot
ing, but far less than we had anticipated. Soon the barbudos} as
Castro's bearded followers were called, arrived from Oriente
and began to restore order. The rebel discipline and the conduct
of the young veterans from the East greatly surprised the public.
There was no drinking. The barbudos accepted only coffee and
soft drinks, and they spoke with courtesy and quiet friendliness.
They began taking over the police stations and army posts and
the radio stations, which constantly called on the people to
maintain order. Castro had sent his most impressive men to
assume the command posts in Havana while he moved slowly
westward through the island. All along the route he was wildly
acclaimed, and when he arrived in Havana on January 8, 1959,
his ovation was one of the greatest in Cuban history.
One of the peculiarities of Cuban political dynamics has al

ways been that a new chief of state takes office on a wave of
extreme jubilation, which soon fades into emotional opposition.
Typical was the experience of Estrada Palma, Cuba's "George
Washington," a man of irreproachable integrity. It curiously
resembled that of Castro fifty-seven years later. When Estrada
Palma returned from exile to Santiago in eastern Cuba in 1902,
he was received with delirious manifestations. A New York
Tribune correspondent who was with him wrote, "In my long
life as a newspaperman, never have I witnessed a scene which
moved me so deeply." In triumphal accompaniment of the peo
ple everywhere, he made his way west toward Havana, where
tens of thousands came to join in the cheering that engulfed him.
21 Emesto "Chen Guevara, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary

War (New York: Monthly Review Press, Inc., 1968), p. 253.
IBt DAGGER IN THE HEART
Four years later, facing open rebellion, Cuba's first president
resigned.
Although some of my Cuban friends do not agree, I have
felt that these dramatic shifts in popularity stem in large part
from the circumstance that in Cuba government has been one
of the largest employers in the country. especially of educated
persons; the disillusionment of those who failed to get govern
ment jobs found hope in the emergence of a new leader. Since
several people coveted each bureaucratic position, the "outs"
during any administration greatly outnumbered the "ins" and
were by definition anti-government. In 1958 Batista had held
political power nearly seventeen years. By that time the "outs"
outnumbered the "ins" by a tremendous margin.
One of my friends talked to Batista in the Dominican Repub
lic in January 1959, a few days after he had been deposed by
the United States. He said, "Mr. President, the last time I saw
you was in Camagiiey. two years ago. As you walked down the
main street women held their children up above the crowd so
they could see you. You were a god to the people. Some wanted
only to touch you. What happened?" Batista answered, "What
happened was that Castro won and I lost; now everyone is
climbing on the bandwagon, as always happens with a change
of government. It happened to me in 1940."
Thus in the early days of January 1959, as the rebels rode
into Havana on tanks, jeeps, and trucks, they were greeted by
hysterical crowds everywhere. A new era had dawned for Cuba,
they felt, and the "outs" were now the "ins." The takeover
proved to be much more orderly than we had anticipated, and
our apprehension diminished considerably during the first days
of the new regime.
On the afternoon of January 8, 1959, Ambassaor Smith
called Dr. Cubas at our office (I was in the United States at
the time), asking if Cubas would come over to see him. He
wanted to know whether we felt he should resign as Ambassador
to Cuba in view of the change of government.
Almost a year earlier Wieland had arranged a press confer
ence for Smith at the State Department in Washington, without
the Ambassador's approval. Smith had been asked, off the
record, whether he thought the American Government would
be able to do business with Castro. He had answered, specifying
that it was off the record, that he did not believe the United
States would ever be able to do business with Fidel Castro-he
did not think that a Castro government would honor its interna
tional obligations. Within two days Castro and his followers in
the mountains had received word that Ambassador Smith had
stated he was a "Communist," 22 and from that time on he had
conducted a vitriolic campaign against the Ambassador, even
accusing him of secret and corrupt dealings with Batista.
Castro and his followers, including ex-President Prio, charged
that on one occasion Smith had made a deal with Batista, offer
ing his support in exchange for tax exemptions in favor of an
American company. This was a cruel lie. The fact was that my
firm had obtained the tax exemptions as a matter of routine pro
cedure under the "new industry" law, without Batista's knowl
edge and before Smith had even arrived in Cuba to assume his
duties. Later, after Castro had come to power, when we began
explaining these circumstances to President Prio in Havana, he
interrupted to say the Castro people were entirely aware that
the accusation was groundless. "We were using every weapon
to discredit the Ambassador," he said, "because he was oppos
ing Castro."
Such totally spurious attacks, repeated over and over again
in varying forms, made it clear that Smith would be unable to
deal with the new regime on cordial terms. My partner told him
frankly that in his view this was the case, and Smith said he
had reached the same conclusion, after consulting with his staff.
He asked Dr. Cubas to so inform the new Prime Minister, Dr.
Jose Mir6 Cardona, presumably to head off the possibility that
the Castro regime might declare Smith persona non grata and
ask for his recall.
22 Smith. pp. 59·61.

Cubas put the matter up to the Prime Minister the following
morning, but in a slightly different way. He suggested that if
the new government felt it could deal more effectively with a new
Ambassador, the matter could probably be arranged. The
Prime Minister spoke by telephone with the new Minister of
State, Dr. Roberto Agramonte, and then told Cubas that the
resignation should come within twenty-four hours, as Agramonte
intended to have him declared persona non grata.
Cubas went at once to the Embassy and found that the
Ambassador had already put in motion the steps leading to his
resignation, which was to be announced the following day at
5 P.M. The same afternoon my partner reported this develop
ment to the Prime Minister, urging him not to submit a request
for a recall. The following morning, on January 9, Cubas met
alone with Fidel Castro at the Havana Hilton Hotel, where Cas
tro had spent the previous night. He explained the situation to
Castro. The resignation would be announced within a few hours,
and it would be a mistake, he suggested, for the new govern
ment to take any action at that time that would antagonize the
United States.
Castro replied in these exact words: "Dr. Cubas, I am in
complete agreement with you. Why should we take an un
friendly step when it is not necessary? Let Mr. Smith resign
and let us have a new Ambassador; this will assure better rela
tions between the two governments, and also we may eventually
need economic assistance from the United States."
My partner said that he was gratified to hear Castro express
himself in this way, but that he was concerned over the antago
nism of the Foreign Minister, Dr. Agramonte. Castro said,
"Don't worry about that at all, Dr. Cubas. Leave it in my
hands." As they parted, Castro turned to a telephone, presum
ably to call the Foreign Office, and Cubas went down to the
lobby and telephoned the Ambassador.
I relate this anecdote because of its possible historical sig
nificance. It may have been, of course, that Castro already had
begun his career as the great dissembler, but at the time, in
early January 1959, we believed that he had spoken sincerely
and did not intend to break with the United States.
During the same interview, my partner had told Castro
frankly that neither he nor I had done anything to assist his
coming into power. Castro smiled. He was glad to hear some
one tell the truth, he remarked, since he was constantly being
given the impression that all Cubans had been members of the
26th of July Movement since its inception. "I know the repu
tation of your firm," he said, "and I will look to you for help
in organizing the new government." Shortly thereafter. I re
ceived requests from various government ministries for the
loan of lawyers from our staff, principally to go over personal
files and eliminate "ghost" employees and grafters from gov
ernment service. At one time or another, over a period of
months, five of our lawyers served in this capacity.
Now that Castro was in power, Cubas and I discussed the
situation at considerable length to establish our firm's policy.
Ninety percent of our practice was of the corporate variety,
which made it necessary that we have good relations with the
heads of government departments. This was not in order to
court favors to which our clients were not entitled, but simply
to expedite the ordinary course of legal business, which at best
can be a slow and tedious procedure. Cubans active in the
professions or in other fields logically tried to keep on good
terms with an existing administration, whether they liked it or
not. Under a Communist regime this becomes a matter of self
preservation, even of survival. By late 1960 in Cuba there could
be only one answer to the question, "Whose side are you on?"
In view of Castro's apparently reasonable attitude during the
interview, particularly his request for our aid, it seemed pos
sible to hope that we might in some degree influence his policies
and encourage a friendly relationship with the United States.
We knew of his participation in the Bogotazo but we had no
positive proof that he was either a Communist or strongly pro
Communist. We did not as yet know that American intelligence
reports had shown Castro to be a willing tool of Communist
policy. The fact that he was a radical Leftist and strongly anti
American had been sufficient reason for us to oppose him. But
now we reasoned that the State Department, with access to
intelligence reports from allover the world, may have known
what it was doing when it blocked other alternatives in order to
bring this man to power.
Castro had issued several statements promising a sound eco
nomic policy combined with honest government and free elec
tions; his takeover had been managed with little friction and
almost no violence, and his followers thus far had made a fine
impression by their earnestness and sobriety. In the flush of his
victory, Castro created a favorable impression. His youth and
seriousness, his splendid physique and remarkable eloquence,
all appealed strongly to the romantic side of the Latin tempera
ment. Cubas and I discounted his charismatic attraction but
began to wonder whether possibly the judgment of Ambassador
Smith had been too harsh. To the man in the street, who did
not share our knowledge of Castro's anti-American attitude, he
indeed appeared as a deliverer. Small wonder that acclaim for
the new popular hero swept Cuba from end to end!
Meanwhile affairs were moving on the diplomatic front. Earl
Smith had resigned as Ambassador. On the day before his
departure from Cuba, Carmen and I invited him and his wife
to dinner at our home. We invited also the United Press corre
spondent and his wife. We sat up until four o'clock in the
morning discussing recent events. Florence Smith was extremely
bitter over the attacks on her husband in both the Cuban and
American press. I remember saying something to this effect:
"Earl, if Castro turns out to be a Communist, this bitter ex
perience of yours is a blessing in disguise. Your severest critics
will be forced to admit that you are one of the few persons who
correctly sized up the Communist threat to Cuba. If that occurs,
the discredited ones will be the leftists, Matthews, Wieland, and
Rubottom." On that note we parted.
Smith left Cuba on January 19, 1959, and with him went
the last hppe of averting a Communist takeover. Herbert Mat
thews exulted in The New York Times.
Who was to blame?

Robert C. Hill, the former American Ambassador to Mexico,
put the matter succinctly when he subsequently declared under
oath, "Individuals in the State Department and individuals in
The New York Times put Castro in power." 23
A Senate Subcommittee investigated Wieland and State De
partment security in 1961-1962, and following the hearing some
of its members believed they knew who was to blame. Senator
Roman L. Hruska of Nebraska wrote: "The plain truth is that
the U.S. State Department was the principal collaborator in
creating the vacuum into which Fidel Castro stepped. . . . Our
Ambassador, under instructions, told Batista the United States
had lost confidence in him, and he had better go. Our hearing
record has established . . . that there were those in the State
Department who were favorable to Castro, who were sup
pressing or failing to pass on to their superiors intelligence
showing Castro's Communist connections. Trading a non-Com
munist dictatorship for a Communist dictatorship is no bar
gain." 24
Senator Kenneth B. Keating of New York said, "The facts
. . . indicate that a breakdown in the process of transmitting
vital intelligence to top State Department officials has contrib
uted to serious errors in jUdging Castro's character and inten
tions. The unfortunate Cuban people are the victims of these
tragic errors." 25
Nevertheless, in an announcement on July 18, 1965-made
23 Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, Communist

Threat to the United States Through the Caribbean (Washington, D. C.:
Government Printing Office, June 12, 1961), Part 12, p. 821.
24 Report of the Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the
Judiciary, The Case of William Wieland, 1962, p. 200.
25 Ibid., p. 202.
to coincide with the publication of the highly critical Senate
Subcommittee report on Wieland-the State Department dis
closed that it had cleared him and restored him to full duty. He
was given the important post of Supervisory Consul General for
Australia. 26
Intervention per se is not necessarily, or even usually, an

evil thing. At times non-intervention is the greater evil. Today
non-intervention in Cuba means acceptance of unilateral Soviet
intervention. It is indisputable that the United States cannot
avoid involvement in the affairs of other nations. The great
power which it wields by virtue of its prestige, wealth, and
strength makes intervention necessary. When it gives economic
aid it intervenes. When it withholds such aid, as in the case of
the Cuban arms embargo, it also intervenes. The Alliance for
Progress is a form of intervention. The question, therefore, is
not whether it should or should not intervene but whether a
particular intervention is desirable.
In 1958 the United States intervened in Cuba with unquali
fiedly evil consequences, if not [or an evil purpose. Negatively
and indirectly at first, and then directly and brazenly, it inter
vened to bring to power the anti-American Castro, known to
some in Washington as a terrorist under Communist influence.
It was the first, and unhappily not the last, of the American
decisions for disaster in Cuba.
26 The New York Times, July 19, 1965.

CHAPTER TWELVE
The First Castro Year
On January 1, 1959, the American people could not have

known, and most of them still do not know, how Fidel Castro
was catapulted to power. Very few Cubans even now are aware
of the essential cause of their national afHiction. This shroud of
ignorance is due in part to the fact that diplomatic maneuvers
are normally and properly made in secrecy. Little of what I
have recounted in the preceding chapters was public information
when it was taking place. Americans and Cubans alike saw the
drama on the stage of events but not the plotting and pulling
behind the scenes.
More than two years were to elapse before some of the key
truths began to emerge, as a result of a U.S. Senate Internal
Security Subcommittee investigation. Even when the veils of
secrecy were finally penetrated, however, some of the forces
behind the Castro takeover were blurred by deceit. Indeed, the
Senators themselves were misinformed by the same State De
partment functionaries who had connived, however highmind
edly, in bringing about the catastrophe.
Appearing before the Senate Subcommittee in 1961, William
Wieland, who had held the important post of Director of Carib
bean-Mexican Affairs, testified that as early as 1957 it had been
his belief "that if Castro won he would be far worse than Batista
for Cuba and dangerous to the United States." 1 But the
1 Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, Testimony

of William Wieland (Washington. D. C.: U. S. Government Printing
Office. 1962). Part 5. p. 553.
Senators were denied access to documents which would have
disclosed this witness's actual official attitude toward Castro
and the specific recommendations that he had made to his
State Department superiors. 2 Wieland also swore that he did
not realize that Castro controlled the government that had
been installed on January 1, 1959. He had not realized it, he
said, until six months later, when Castro "threw out" his puppet
President Urrutia. 3 Such innocence on the part of a presumptive
expert who had played a heavy role in clearing the road to
power for Castro was, to say the least, most remarkable.
As the strange facts began to come to the surface, certain
journalists anxiously compounded the confusion. In late 1961,
for exiunple, the redoubtable Herbert L. Matthews wrote that
Rubottom and Wieland could not have prevented the triumph
of Castro and that "their policies in 1957 and 1958 favored
Batista and hampered Castro." (Emphasis added.) It would
be "an astonishing distortion of history to say the opposite,"
he still insisted."
Castro did not begin to confiscate American-owned prop

erties at once. In the beginning the new regime moved cautious
ly, feeling its way and testing American responses. No Cuban
Chief of State had ever entertained the illusion that he could
long hold power if he violently offended the United States, and
Castro was too intelligent to entertain any such thought. Shortly
after the takeover he made a conciliatory speech stressing that
revolutionary reforms would be carried out poco a poco, in an
evolutionary spirit. This assurance was welcomed by the busi
ness community and eagerly accepted by his champions in the
American Embassy. Nevertheless, the first aspect of his ideology
that came into sharp focus was not his pro-Communist pro
clivities but his anti-Americanism.
2 The same Subcommittee, The Case of William Wieland, p. 150.

31bid.• p. 158.
4 Herbert L. Matthews, The Cuban Story (New York: George BraziUer,
1962), pp. 72, 73.
THE FIRST CASl'RO YEAR la,
On January 15, only seven days after the triumphal entry
into Havana, a reporter mentioned the criticism that the execu·
tions were evoking in the United States. Castro exploded in
anger: "If the Americans don't like what is happening in Cuba,
they can land the Marines and then there will be 200,000 dead
gringos." 5 The derogatory word "gringo," used almost exclu
sively by Mexicans, had not until then been used in Cuba.
The Ambassador appointed to succeed Earl Smith was Philip

W. BonsaI. He was, of course, fully aware of the manner in
which Castro had been maneuvered into power. A polished
career diplomat, tall and slender, soft-spoken and intelligent,
he arrived in Havana on January 21. His father, Stephen
BonsaI, had covered the Spanish-American War for the New
York Tribune five years before Philip was born. Philip Bonsal
had made a good record in Bolivia and Colombia, where he
had been credited with having had a hand in removing the
alleged dictator General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. He spoke Span
ish fluently. His first Foreign Service post had been in Havana,
as Vice Consul, at which time we had become good friends.
He has always been a sincere liberal.
Bonsal never consulted my partner or me on political matters
during his twenty-one months in Cuba as Ambassador. This
did not surprise us at first, since it conformed to the usual
pattern. Upon arrival in Cuba, each new American Ambassador
seeks to reverse or undo to some extent what his predecessor
had done, if only as proof of his own capacity. Initially he seeks
friends and advisers who have not been close to the man he
succeeded. It is an understandable human trait, one with which
I had long been familiar. BonsaI's tenure, however, marked the
first instance in almost forty years when neither my partner nor
I-though we represented a large segment of American inter
ests in Cuba-ever entered the Ambassador's office. We were
5 R. Hart Phillips, The Cuban Dilemma (New York: Ivan Obolensky,

Inc., 1962), p. 28.
able to follow developments on the diplomatic front closely
notwithstanding, through several intimate friends on the Em
bassy staff.
Sent to Cuba to implement a "soft approach" in line with the
Washington commitment to the "democratic Left," BonsaI was
by nature as well qualified as any American diplomat to attempt
this. Had Castro been the kind of man the State Department
wanted him to be, the mission would undoubtedly have been
successful. The dictator, however, proved to be of an entirely
different breed. Bonsal's failure certainly was not due to lack
of zeal in applying that "soft approach." During the ensuing
months he established a record for docility and patience as
Castro heaped upon the United States indignities and insults
as shocking as any suffered by a great power in modern times.
Castro did not even accord the new Ambassador an interview
until he had been in Cuba about three months, and he received
him only twice during the twenty-one months of his stay there.
Eventually BonsaI was reduced to the humiliation of having to
deal with a twenty-seven-year-old protocol officer of the Foreign
Ministry. His extraordinary forbearance under conditions of
extreme provocation should dispel for all time the fairy tale
that Castro was "forced" into the Communist camp by an
unfriendly attitude on the part of the United States. On the
contrary, BonsaI's tolerance unquestionably emboldened Castro
to move step by step toward the Left and eventually to line up
openly with the Soviets. In early 1959 our office was in close
touch with Castro. Our lawyers who had been lent to him
to help "sanitize" government ministries, as he expressed it,
reported to me that he at first expressed surprise, then astonish
ment, over the Embassy's indulgence. In due time it convinced
him that he could disregard the American presence completely.
During the early months of 1959 a tide of violence swept

over the island, directed principally against all who could con
ceivably be suspected of sympathy with Batista. Because he
had been in power for seventeen of the preceding twenty-five
THE FIRST CASTRO YEAR 1'1
years, many Cubans of consequence were tarred in some way
by the Batista brush. We heard that RaUl Castro had ordered
the execution of seventy-five prisoners in Oriente. He did not
wait for his brother to set up even rudimentary procedures for
a trial but stood the men up on the edge of a common grave,
scooped out by a bulldozer, and had them shot into it with
machine guns. It is commonly accepted that the slim, repulsive
looking, twenty-eight-year-old youth, with hawk-like face and
hair worn in a pony tail, executed 250 people at Santiago de
Cuba in the first few days. Raul Castro has remained to this day
one of the most sinister and hated figures of the Revolution.
I attended a number of trials in Havana and Matanzas. The
spectacles filled me with horror. Once I observed that the death
sentence had been tacked up even before the trial had ended.
The occasional defense witnesses were examined amid loud in
sults and threats. We reasoned that the purpose of these execu
tions was to terrify the population into acquiescence with the
new order. I had never imagined that there could be such
ruthlessness among Cubans. The arrests continued day after
day, and no one knew when he too might be charged with a
"crime." Some of those who witnessed the executions seemed
to revel in bloodshed; sometimes at the moment of death there
would be cheering and applause. The youths conducting these
trials, many of whom were attempting beards, seemed to be
convinced that they were doing what was right, but I was cer
tain that the fear and hatred they engendered would some day
return to plague Castro.
One of my intimate friends was Edward Scott, the Havana
representative of National Broadcasting Company and a colum
nist for the Havana Post. He also attended the kangaroo trials,
and now and then we lunched together and compared notes. He
had found, as I did, that most of the prisoners died bravely;
some had even given orders to the firing squad.
Ted Scott told me once of a young blond Cuban boy who
was about to be executed. As the priest moved away and the
squad prepared to fire, the prisoner told them that they were
19% DAGGER IN THE HEART
shooting an innocent man and that they would suffer for it. He
spoke eloquently, saying that when they got home they might
find that some of their family had been killed in an accident.
When the order to fire was given only one bullet struck the
prisoner. Captain Herman Marks, an American with a long
criminal record, who supervised the executions at La Cabana,
stepped up and fired two A5-caliber bullets through the pris
oner's head. Marks, called "The Butcher," then ordered the
arrest of the entire firing squad. Ted told me that one of them
could not have been over fifteen.
We learned of a group of Castro followers who cagily spread
the rumor that seaworthy boats would leave from a point near
our beach house in Varadero at appointed times for the Florida
coast. When men and women arrived as instructed, clutching
a few valuables and keepsakes, and having paid heavily for the
boon of escaping, the women were arrested and the men shot.
This blood-letting shocked the world, but not enough, alas,
to puncture "democratic Left" delusions in Washington. If
Batista had dealt with the Castro brothers in the same manner
that Castro was now dealing with his opponents, Cuba would
have been spared its present agony. Let it be remembered that
they had assaulted the Moncada Army Post. I received letters
from American friends in high office asking me if there was
anything I could do to stop the killings. There was nothing.
Castro was rarely available, and suggestions from the outside
only infuriated him.
During this period my partner and I were visited by black
mailers on several occasions. They charged that we had not
paid taxes or duty on imports, but our official receipts and can
celed checks were always available and we chose to ignore the
extortionist threats.
The first incident that definitely turned a large part of the
population against Castro was the trial of forty-three airmen
in a revolutionary court in Santiago de Cuba. The accusation
was that they had bombed rebel hideouts during the Revolution,
but most of those who had engaged in these activities had al
THE FIRST CASTRO YEAR 193
ready escaped from the island. The group on trial included
transport pilots and mechanics who had made no effort to get
out. Since the prosecutor was unable to find evidence against
any of the defendants, they were acquitted.
Castro at once staged a hysterical and inflammatory tele
vision broadcast to denounce the acquittal. We gathered around
the television set in my partner's office to see and hear him. He
branded the three judges as "traitors," called the airmen "the
worst criminals of the Batista regime," and accused them of
"genocide," comparing their presumed offenses to the mass
killings by the Hitler regime. Invoking the Nuremberg trials as
a precedent, he declared that it was entirely proper, when legal
grounds could not be found, to sentence "war criminals" on
the basis of "moral conviction." He announced the appointment
of his bearded Defense Minister, Augusto Martinez Sanchez,
as the new prosecutor and ordered him to organize a "review"
court. (MartInez Sanchez eventually shot himself; I do not
know whether he survives.)
Both the Havana and the National Bar Associations pro
tested against the lawless "review." One of the seven defense
lawyers stated that "the servility of an entire people was con
verting Major Fidel Castro into a new and terrible Napoleon
of the Caribbean." He was promptly jailed.
At the retrial, twenty-nine of the airmen were given prison
terms of from twenty to thirty years at hard labor, twelve re
ceived terms of from two to six years, and two mechanics were
released. One of the defense lawyers, who had made a par
ticularly impassioned plea for his client, was imprisoned. Shortly
after this second trial the presiding judge at the first trial, a
twenty-eight-year-old rebel who had fought with Castro in the
mountains, was found dead. The authorities claimed that it was
a case of suicide.
Such was the background when Castro, in the fourth month

of his reigu, embarked on his memorable junket to the land
of the "gringos." He was received as a hero. His exceptional
gifts for play-acting were more than matched by American
talents for self-deception. In retrospect it is all too clear that,
with some honorable exceptions, the U.S. press and electronic
media, the academic community, and officialdom were "taken"
by the beguiling tyrant. They played up his promises of free
elections and democracy to come; they avoided embarrassing
questions about the deepening terror in his country; especially
they slurred over his already venomous expressions of hatred
for the United States.
When he spoke before the American Society of Newspaper
Editors in Washington on April 15, 1959, it was a different
Castro whom Americans saw, and naIvely credited, than the
one known to intelligent Cubans. This was not the fulminating
man of violence who ordered his opponents to the wall or to
long terms in prison, but a charming if eccentric character
whose friendship was worth cultivating. The editors were im
pressed and many of their papers sang his praises. The govern
ment demonstrated its esteem with a luncheon tendered by
Secretary of State Christian A. Herter. At Harvard University
Castro was greeted with a thunderous ovation and elsewhere,
everywhere, he was loaded with evidences of good will unto
adulation.
He tried to convince his audiences that neither he nor his
government was Communist, that he wanted nothing but peace
and friendship with his good neighbor to the north. Before
leaving for the United States he had told his people on television
that he was undertaking the trip in order to obtain credits
through the World Bank and the Export-Import Bank of Wash
ington. But now, curiously, he asked for nothing. Plans were
being prepared by the appropriate U.S. agencies to extend
financial aid, when suddenly Castro changed his mind. His ad
visers were instructed not to initiate negotiations for a loan.
Americans in and out of government were surprised and batHed.
They could not or would not guess that their lionized visitor
had plans for helping himself to far more American wealth than
he could have obtained legally.
A preview of what was to come in the way of hemispheric
turbulence under the aegis of the new Cuban regime had been
provided shortly before Castro's journey to the United States.
A group of eighty-seven men, supplied with arms and a fifty
five-foot boat, set off from Cuba to spark a revolution in
Panama. Castro denied that he personally had authorized this
venture, and in this case he may have been telling the truth.
Political exiles from other countries had swarmed into Cuba
and HChe" Guevara took a keen personal interest in the pro
Communists among them. The abortive Panamanian expedition
undoubtedly had his sponsorship.
A more ambitious project was launched by Castro himself
a few weeks later, with the Dominican Republic as its target.
The Communist 14th of June Movement, which supported
Juan Bosch and has remained militantly active in Dominican
politics, takes its name from this venture. By ship and plane
225 rebels landed in the northwestern section of the country.
Before they could reach the mountains they were killed or
captured by Trujillo's troops. The Dominican Republic com
plained to the United Nations, but little attention was paid to
dictator Trujillo. Castro complained too. He charged Trujillo
with an "indescribable violation of human rights."
Meanwhile a noteworthy diplomatic move was made which

did not come to light until almost two years later. In April,
American ambassadors to the countries in the Caribbean area
and Central America met in conference at EI Salvador to
appraise the Castro problem. One of those present was the
energetic and respected diplomat Robert C. Hill. 6 He had served
as Ambassador to Mexico since July 1957 and previously as
Ambassador to Costa Rica and EI Salvador. He knew of Castro's
arrest in Mexico in March 1956 and of his plan to "invade"
Cuba from there. He also knew that Castro had passed out
6 Former Ambassador Robert C. Hill has testified that the references

to him in this chapter are accurate.
1" DAGGER IN THE HEART
Communist literature in Bogota in 1948 and that he was closely
associated with Guevara, known as a Communist. From the
very beginning, therefore, he believed that Castro was oriented ,.
toward Communism. His opinions were strongly influenced by
intelligence reports that had come to the U.S. Embassy in
Mexico.
Because of Mexico's proximity to Cuba, Hill was concerned
that the Cuban problem might affect the relations between the
United States and Mexico. Agents from Moscow and Red
China were going back and forth between the Soviet Embassies
in Mexico City and Cuba, and propaganda was flowing freely
into Mexico from Cuba. Ambassador Hill had continually re
ported to Washington on these matters. He had brought the
seriousness of the Castro-Communist threat to the attention of
every Senator, Congressman, newspaperman, and person of im
portance who visited Mexico.
Hill was shocked by intelligence reports that the Soviets were
amazed at the ease with which they were being permitted to
penetrate Cuba. The mounting evidence of Communism in
Cuba, he was convinced, should be submitted to the Organiza
tion of American States, which could then be convened to take
action under the Caracas, Bogota, and Rio treaties. If the
OAS failed to take action, he felt that the United States should
act unilaterally, imposing a complete air and sea embargo
against Cuba.
The EI Salvador meeting in April 1959 brought the liberal
BonsaI into open conflict with the conservative Hill. Within
five minutes after the conference opened a communique was
submitted and the conferees were asked to approve it. It was
couched in platitudes and recommended patience in dealing
with Castro. Ambassador Hill strongly objected, insisting that
under normal and correct procedure the communique should
be considered at the end of the conference, not at its beginning.
He took the position that continuing forbearance in dealing
with Castro could lead only to disaster, pointing out that Castro
had already destroyed the Cuban military forces and the
THE FIRST CASTRO YEAR 1'7
country's bureaucracy. After a heated debate the communique
was withdrawn. It was resubmitted at the end of the conference
with stronger language, and approved over BonsaI's objections.
Hill had argued at the conference that the time to deal firmly
with Castro had arrived. Bonsal's position was that the United
States should go slowly, in spite of Castro's continuing attacks;
that eventually he would see the light and return to the family
of Latin American nations; that Cuba had needed a revolution.
Hill argued that Communism never "sees the light" and that it
would be a mistake to issue a communique whitewashing
Castro. BonsaI, pleading that anything in the communique that
cast a reflection on Castro would make his job in Cuba more
difficult, wanted a statement geared to good will and evading
the Communist issue. There were twelve persons present at the
conference, including Rubottom and Wieland. Only one, Am
bassador Willauer from Costa Rica, supported Hill.
Ambassador Hill has testified that after the EI Salvador con
ference ended, BonsaI approached Ambassador Thomas E.
Whelan at his hotel and expressed the hope that he would use
his influence with the Republican National Committee to get rid
of Hill. He also testified that BonsaI had advised him, "If you
cannot be a team player, why not resign?" Hill replied that his
resignation was a matter for the President and the Secretary of
State.1 Bonsal has. denied to me that he attempted to get Hill
fired, explaining that his remark to Hill "may" have been simply
to the effect that an American Ambassador who disagrees with
his government's policy to the point of expressing his disagree
ment publicly should resign.
The conference recommended, and two of the highest officials
present (Deputy Under Secretary of State Loy Henderson and
Assistant Secretary Rubottom) agreed, that all evidence of
Communism in Cuba be submitted to the Secretary of State
and then to the OAS for appropriate action. There is no
7 Hearings before Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the

Judiciary, Part 12, 1961, p. 818.
evidence that these steps ever were taken. Ambassador Hill has
written me that he believes that this· action, which might still
have saved Cuba, was torpedoed in the State Department. All
that came from the EI Salvador meeting was a reaffirmation of
American determination to accommodate Castro.
Castro had talked a great deal about an Agrarian Reform

Law, and it was published in May 1959. Far more radical than
had been expected, it contained provisions clearly designed to
strip Cuban and American sugar mills of their immensely valu~
able cane lands. It provided that no cane plantation could be
operated by a stock company unless every stockholder was a
Cuban. No foreigner could purchase or inherit Cuban farm
land; no one could own more than 1,000 acres except cattlemen
and cane planters, who were permitted to retain 3,333 acres.
Excess acreage would be subject to "expropriation," equiva
lent to eminent domain in the United States. Payment would be
made with twenty-year government peso bonds, not convertible
into dollars, carrying a 4 percent interest coupon. No such
bonds ever were printed. Any farm, no matter how small, could
be seized if the government considered it was not being "fully
developed." Farmers would have to grow only the crops ordered
by the Agrarian Reform Institute, over which Castro would
preside, and deliver them at prices fixed by the Institute. The
values which Castro announced would be assigned to cane lands
for expropriation purposes after the 1960 harvest were approx
imately a fifth of their real value. Nevertheless, a New York
Times editorial commented not unfavorably on the confiscatory
measure, declaring that "an agrarian reform was overdue in
Cuba." 8
On June 11 the United States presented a note to Cuba con
veying "concern" over the manner in which American property
owners were to be compensated. Four days after receipt of the
toothless legalistic communication, Castro bluntly and scorn
8 Phillips, p. 81.
fully rejected it, saying that Cuba would not accept any im
pairment of its "national sovereignty and dignity." II
As !f in contemptuous response to the American note, a
massive confiscation of cattle lands was immediately begun.
For more than two decades Cuba had been self-sufficient in
meat, dairy, and poultry products, and it had become an ex
porter of beef because it possessed natural advantages for
cattle raising, including pastures of good native grasses avail
able throughout the year. By 1958 new blood lines had been
imported and crossed with native criollo breeds; the quality of
beef was excellent, and the price was low, ranging from twenty
to forty-five cents a pound. Now this superb industry-live
stock was the country's second most important source of agri
cultural income-was to be stolen and largely destroyed. Al
though only an insignificant part of the cattle industry was
American owned, the experience of these few ranches was
typical.
The 3,333-acre area to which the Agrarian Reform Law
had restricted these properties was about one-sixteenth the size
of the American-owned Pingree Ranch in Oriente Province and
one-ninth that owned in part by the King Ranch of Texas in
Camagtiey Province. These two ranches, valued at close to
$10 million, had 22,000 head of cattle.
The Pingree Ranch employed a large force of Cuban cow
boys who received eighty-five dollars a month with food, a
house, a garden, and equipment. These men were informed
by government agents that the ranch would become a "co
operative" and that they would be members, sharing in the
profits. Instead it was turned into a state farm; all salaries were
reduced and the fringe benefits eliminated. One of my Cuban
friends told me he had cried when the soldiers, in seizing his
property, slaughtered a twenty-thousand-dollar breeding bull
for a barbecue.
During the summer of 1959, ranches comprising an area of
Illbid., p. 85.
about two and a half million acres were taken over. Ranch
owners who did not willingly relinquish their property were
arrested as "counter-revolutionaries." Seldom were inventories
prepared or receipts given to the victims.
Soon the peasantry would fight with the best weapon at its
disposal: growing no more than it needed for itself. The flow
of meat, fowl, and other foodstuffs from the countryside to
cities and towns would slow down with each passing month.
Long and dreary queues, chiefly of women, would stretch from
shop doors, waiting for food. Eventually this in turn would
oblige the government to exert more vigorous pressures on the
peasants.
At the same time Castro was moving ahead with his revolu
tionary "reforms" on other fronts. Under labor laws adopted
more than twenty years earlier the President had been author
ized to "intervene" a business ("temporarily" supersede its
management) in order to enforce rulings of the Labor Ministry.
Many such "interventions" had been ordered during the in
flationary period of World War II, when employers had refused
to grant wage increases ordered by the government. The prac
tice had fallen into disuse, however, during the closing years of
the Batista administration. In early 1959 Castro revived it
with a vengeance, with the difference that labor disorders were
intentionally provoked by the regime and that once an "inter
vention" was ordered, property owners never regained man
agement control.
This device was used also to expropriate newspaper and
other communications media as a means of silencing opposition.
The most blatant use of the intervention procedure was against
the hundred-year-old Diario de la Marina, looked upon by
many as the unofficial voice of the Catholic Church. Its coura
geous editor, Jose Ignacio Rivero, was outspokenly critical of
the new order. This maddened Castro, who cannot stand crit
icism. To make matters worse, the public was reacting favorably
\
\
'I1IE FIRST CASTRO YEAR 201

to the Marina's stand. Congratulatory messages poured in to the
paper, and thousands of new subscriptions were taken out.
At first Castro was fearful of closing down the influential
newspaper, but when he learned that Rivero was planning to
call for free elections, he moved in. Officials representing the
government and the unions showed up at the plant and de
manded that the call for elections not be published. When the
editors refused, the plant was "intervened," seized forcibly by
the regime. This signaled the beginning of the end of freedom
of the press in Cuba. A few days later another newspaper,
Prensa Libre, that had also dared to criticize the new masters
was taken over by armed militiamen. From that time onward.
Cubans have been fed a constant diet of propaganda.
Several of our clients who had always enjoyed excellent labor
relations, including some who had recently negotiated long-term
agreements with their unions, were suddenly confronted with
wholly unrealistic labor demands, inspired by fanatical Castro
agitators aiming at "intervention." Our staff worked hard and
late to recapture the lost properties, but our efforts proved
hopeless. Arbitrary decisions had superseded all law, including
Castro's own supposed laws. When American companies were
involved, Embassy staff members had at first cooperated, but
without result. As time passed our American clients came to
regard Embassy assistance as more harmful than helpful and
dispensed with it. For the first time a Cuban government began
treating American Embassy officials with demonstrative con
tempt.
It was in this manner that a number of important businesses
and industries passed to government control. An early victim
was the Cuban Telephone Company, which was intervened on
May 3, 1959. Soon, however, the transparent mask of legality
was discarded and the regime began seizing properties at
random.
During these early months Castro, hypersensitive to criticism

of any sort, appeared to be outraged whenever charges of
Communism were made. He even clashed with the Catholic
Church because it dared to charge that his regime was moving
toward Communism. But most of the government crises during
1959 were provoked by this issue.
On June 30 another case of this sort developed when the
Chief of the Air Force, Major Pedro Diaz Lanz, wrote a letter
to President Urrutia charging that Communist elements were
carrying out a program of indoctrination in officers' training
schools, as indeed they were. He then resigned, defected, and
reached Miami in a small boat with his wife. This was a heavy
blow to Castro. Major DIaz Lanz had fought with the rebels,
transported arms to Castro, and been Castro's personal pilot.
To make matters worse from Castro's standpoint, Diaz Lanz
turned up on July 14 at a public hearing before the Senate
Internal Security Subcommittee; he charged, with supporting
evidence, that Castro was a willing tool of international Com
munism.
The reaction to this development provides an interesting
study. Castro, predictably, called Diaz Lanz a traitor, Cuba's
Benedict Arnold, and excoriated the Senate Subcommittee for
interfering in Cuban affairs. President Eisenhower took an
equivocal position when, at a press conference the day after
the hearing, he was asked to comment on the charge made by
DIaz Lanz. "Now such things are charged," said the President,
"and they are not always easy to prove, and the United States
has made no such charges." 10
Most interesting, and perhaps equally predictable, was the
manner in which the episode was covered by the free liberal
press of the United States. It provides a classic example of how
its liberalism often undercuts the responsibility that should
accompany its enjoyment of freedom.
Matthews came through with a dispatch from Havana on
July 16, prominently featured by The New York Times. "This
is not a Communist revolution in any sense of the word and
10 Press conference, July IS, 1959.

TIlE FIRST CASTRO YEAR 203
there are no Communists in positions of control," he wrote.
"The accusations of Major Pedro· Diaz Lanz are rejected by
virtually all Cubans. It is stated here that before his resignation
Major Diaz was removed from high office for incompetence,
extravagance and nepotism. . . . Castro is not only not a Com
munist but decidedly anti-Communist." (Italics added.) His
paper followed this up the next day with an editorial compli
menting President Eisenhower for declaring that the United
States had made no charges against Castro, a fact that it had
also pointed out in an editor's note to the Matthews article.
Other newspapers presented similar editorials commending the
President.
Walter Lippmann, the widely syndicated liberal columnist,
joined in the chorus of attack on Dfaz Lanz. He underlined the
importance of having in Cuba an Ambassador who was in total
sympathy with the revolution, but warned that Bonsal would
have no chance of succeeding "if Congress is going to rough
house our relations with Cuba" by providing "a platform and
loudspeaker for a disaffected Cuban adventurer to denounce
the Cuban revolutionists as Communists." 11 Another liberal pun
dit, Ralph McGill, who was in Cuba at the time, went even
further. Like Matthews, he smeared Dfaz Lanz, portraying him
as a disgruntled soldier-of-fortune who had flown arms in for
Castro in the earlier days and had later been involved in "clan
destine money-making activities." 12 Other newspapers, among
them the Washington Post,13 joined the campaign against the
man who had risked his life to warn the American people-
with absolute accuracy, as it turned out-of what was to come.
The result was that Diaz Lanz's disclosures were rendered value
less.
Outside of the South the editorial columns, and in many
cases the news dispatches, of the immense majority of the
11 Walter Lippmann in the New York Herald Tribune, July 23, 1959.
12 Ralph McGill, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, in his column of
July 7, 1959.
13 Washington Post editorial of July 16, 1959.
daily newspapers are colored by liberal ideology. Everyone
knows that the champions in this respect are the Washington
Post and The New York Times. Even in the South there are
the Atlanta Constitution and the Miami Herald. Few indeed
were the American newspapers that permitted their readers
intelligently to assess the approaching Communist menace in
Cuba. One, to its enduring credit, was the Charleston (S.C.)
News and Courier.
This is not a case of hindsight revealing belated wisdom. It
is a factual account of how the influential liberal segment of the
American press handled the first authentic disclosure of Com
munist penetration in nearby Cuba.
On the very day that the Matthews dispatch attacking Diaz

Lanz was published, July 16, Castro turned on Urrutia, the man
he had named as provisional President of the Republic. His
maneuver had all the earmarks of demagoguery and deceit. He
first resigned as Premier and then went on television to de
nounce the President as a traitor. Urrutia was a colorless but
honest conservative provincial judge. He had shown no enthu
siasm for new laws imposing the death penalty or for the re
cently promulgated radical Agrarian Reform Law, and had
thus incurred Castro's wrath. As Castro continued his hours
long television performance, crowds gathered outside the Palace
shouting, "Down with Urrutia!" The President resigned even
before Castro finished speaking, and the "Supreme Chief" then
graciously rescinded his own phony resignation. Subsequently
Urrutia took refuge in the Argentine Embassy and eventually
escaped to the United States. The Presidency was filled by
Osvaldo Dorticos Torrado, a Communist.
Matthews of the Times came through with a typical explana
tion for Castro's bizarre performance. The day after the tragi
comedy of the "resignation," he claimed that it had been
prompted, not by troubles inside Cuba, but by resentment of
American criticism. "The attacks on him [Castro] in the United
States had wounded and injured him," he wrote. The ink on
mE FIRST CASTRO YEAR 205
the dispatch was hardly dry when Castro demolished its in
verted logic by declaring that he had tried to give up the
Premiership because of his quarrel with the President and be
cause Urrutia had spoken unkindly of the Communists. The
Times withdrew the Matthews analysis from its late edition.
With Dortic6s installed, the campaign of hatred against the
United States assumed ever larger dimensions. On July 26
Castro called the U.S. "the sworn enemy of all Latin American
countries and of the progress of all peoples of the world." 14 A
month later he shouted on television that "Cuba is today facing
United States imperialism, the rapacious and exploiting im
perialism, the bloody and voracious imperialism, which here
has lost some of its rapacious claws." 15 No matter how rabid
his anti-American tirades, however, there was no dearth of
"understanding" Americans in the United States to explain and
justify them.
In July, in the face of a mounting depression, income and

excise taxes were increased exorbitantly, sales taxes of 20 per
cent were imposed on such commodities as refrigerators and
radios, 30 percent on automobiles costing more than $3,000.
In September customs duties were raised from thirty percent
to 100 percent, cutting off such American imports as household
appliances and automobiles.
The Minister of Finance, Rufo L6pez-Fresquet, had been
an active Castro collaborator since 1956. In the autumn of
1958 he had been largely responsible for extorting a million
dollars in "war taxes" for Castro in the eastern provinces from
producers of sugar, coffee, and other products, as insurance
against rebel interference with their businesses. Regarding him
self as an "economist," Minister L6pez-Fresquet became a
friend of Matthews, BonsaI, and members of what was soon
known as the "Castro cell" in the American Embassy. When
14 Phillips,p. 239.
IS/bid., p. 246.

he resigned thirteen months later, feigning illness, he gave an
account of an episode involving me which was almost wholly
erroneous and to which I shall refer later in its proper context.
In August 1959, when Castro's wild anti-Americanism and

pro-Communist leanings were clearly apparent, an incident
involving Dr. Milton Eisenhower took place that in the light
of later events appears almost incredible.
The President's brother had just returned from a journey to
Soviet Russia with Vice-President Nixon. Tired and wanting
several days of rest, he made another of his several trips to
Mexico as a guest of the Mexican Government. In Mexico City
he stayed with Ambassador Hill,16 as his house guest. Dr.
Eisenhower, who did not speak Spanish, was joined by Wieland,
billed as his adviser. Soon after his arrival, Ambassador Hill
inquired whether Dr. Eisenhower would be willing to have
senior officers of the Embassy brief him on the Embassy's
information regarding the Castro-Communist threat in Cuba,
and his guest readily agreed. To Hill it seemed a rare oppor
tunity to get his message to the President of the United States,
since Milton Eisenhower was still acting as his brother's adviser
on Latin American affairs.
The briefing took place in the C-47 plane of the Embassy's
Air Attache, on the way to Mazatlan. Among those present
was Raymond F. Leddy, the political affairs counselor of the
Embassy, a former official of the FBI and the CIA, and gener
ally regarded as one of the best-informed men in the State
Department on Latin America. He had lived as a Foreign
Service officer in Cuba, where he had gained an intimate
knowledge of the situation there. The Ambassador asked Leddy
to prepare his documentation carefully for the briefing. Among
his papers Leddy had a reference to dispatch No. 666, dated
May 22, 1959, from the American Embassy in Moscow to the
16 Hearings before the Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the

Judiciary, Part 12, 1961, p. 797.
State Department, identifying RaUl Castro as a Communist. A
member of the Embassy staff in Moscow had worked his way
into a lecture and had heard the Soviet speaker say that Raul
Castro was "one of us"-a Communist.
The plane was furnished with a divan, with bucket seats at
either end. Leddy sat on the divan with Dr. Eisenhower on one
side and Wieland on the other. During the briefing, whenever
Leddy said, "This Cuban organization is Communist-domi
nated," or "This Cuban official is a Communist," Wieland
would interrupt with, "It is not true!" 17
Ambassador Hill had been warned by Foreign Service officers
that Wieland was not to be trusted on the Cuban issue, and
that he (Hill) should be very careful in dealing witlL him.
Annoyed at the interruptions, he finally turned impatiently to
Wieland. "I do not recall asking you to be in on this conversa
tion," he said. "Dr. Eisenhower has agreed to listen to a man
of integrity and experience in Latin American. What Mr. Leddy
is discussing at the moment comes from the joint intelligence
report of June 1959 regarding Communist infiltration in Cuba."
The report bore out many of Leddy's contentions. It was
obvious to the group that Wieland had not read it; nevertheless
he argued that he saw all intelligence reports, and that only a
part of them reached Mexico. He knew Castro personally, he
declared, and attested that the man was an idealist. "There is
no evidence of Communist infiltration in. Cuba," he repeated.
After a time Colonel Benoid Glawe, the Air Attache, came
back from the cockpit and joined in the discussion, supporting
Leddy's and the Ambassador's point of view. As Leddy was
drawing a report from his briefcase, Col. Glawe, provoked by
Wieland's continuing opposition, said to him, "You are either
a damn fool or a Communist." Tempers flared, whereupon Dr.
Eisenhower terminated the briefing, saying he wanted to hear
no more about it. Interestingly, this had been a clash between
three conservatives on the one hand and the left-wing, liberal
17 Ibid., p. 798.
l08 DAGGER IN THE HEART
Wieland on the other. Dr. Eisenhower, himself a liberal, had
failed to reprimand Wieland for his heckling at the briefing.
Wieland had been alone in defending Castro in the plane. He
had disagreed, unasked, with every important point raised by
Leddy. Subsequently, four witnesses before a Senate Subcom
mittee vividly recalled under oath the details of the confronta
tion in the skies over Mexico. It seemed hardly the kind of
heated scene that any of its participants would fail to remember.
Yet Wieland at first swore that he had no recollection of the
whole affair. IS
A footnote to that lapse of memory was provided by later
developments. Early in 1962 Wieland was one of two State
Department officials whom President Kennedy defended when
they were called possible security risks. The evaluating officer
who handled the security study on Wieland and reached an
unfavorable conclusion was the Deputy Director of the Office
of Security in the State Department, Otto F. Otepka. Asked
under oath by the Senate Subcommittee on Security whether
he accepted as credible Wieland's claim that he did not recall
the discussion in the airplane, Otepka replied: "I think Wieland
lied." 19 But Deputy Secretary of State Roger W. Jones testified
that he had appraised the "apparent discrepancy" between
Wieland's testimony and that of the four other witnesses and
had decided the facts in favor of Wieland. 20
By now, the "Otepka case" having become a cause celebre,
it is general knowledge that this official's rigid standards in
evaluating security problems was not appreciated by some of
his superiors and associates. Wieland was only one of a num
ber of men whose clearance he had attempted to block. His
insistence on carrying out his duties as prescribed by official
regulations, even when apparent administration favorites were
involved, led to his notorious subjection to harassments.

The Case of William Wieland, 1962, p. 124.
19/bid., p. 19.
20 Ibid., p. 128.
Otepka's telephone was bugged and his office ransacked.
Manufactured "evidence" to discredit him was planted in his
wastebasket. Several of those engaged in the effort to discredit
him perjured themselves before the Subcommittee. 21 Although
he had served for nine years and received only highly favorable
performance ratings, he was stripped of his security functions
and kept on the payroll without meaningful duties while charges
against him were supposedly being investigated, year after year.
In the end most of the charges were dropped without explana
tion, but Otepka was rebuked and demoted in rank and pay.22
As to Wieland, a three-man interagency panel was appointed
to review his case. State Department officials had said that he
had at no time been suspended during his review. The panel,
however, recommended that Wieland be "restored" to full
status as an active senior Foreign Service officer. A Department
spokesman was unable to define what lesser degree of status
had been implied by the panel's decision that he be "restored"
to full status. 28
In any event the State Department accepted the recommen
dation of the advisory panel in January 1965, which completely
cleared Wieland and closed his case. But the Department's
announcement on the decision was deferred until July 18, to
coincide with the publication of the highly critical report on
Wieland by the Senate Subcommittee.
The State Department verdict against Otepka, signed by Sec
retary of State Dean Rusk, had been handed to Otepka on De
cember 11, 1967. It directed that he be "severely reprimanded,"
that his salary be cut by more than $5,000 (about 25%), and
that he be assigned to duties which did not involve "security"
functions. It was not until eighteen months later, after the elec
tion of President Nixon, that Otepka was vindicated. On the
recommendation of Senator Everett Dirkson, the President ap
pointed him to the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB)
21 National Review Bulletin, February 20, 1968, p. B30.
22 The New York Times, December 13, 1967.
23 The New York Times, July 19, 1965.

and, in spite of the strong opposition of Senator Edward Ken
nedy and The New York Times, the Senate confirmed the ap
pointment by a 61-to-28 vote on June 24, 1969.
A final word before dismissing Wieland. In the faU of 1969

a powerful and brilliant book titled The Ordeal of Otto Otepka,
written by the respected author and journalist William J. Gill,
was published. It confirms the references to Otepka which ap
peared in the first three editions of this book and it adds the
following interesting anecdote with respect to Wieland. Accord
ing to Mr. Gill, Wieland had told Otepka under oath that he
had met Fidel Castro only once in his entire life. This had been
a very casual meeting, Wieland had said, at a luncheon tendered
by former Secretary of State Herter to Castro during the lat
ter's visit to Washington in April 1959, at which thirty other
guests were present. But a few weeks after President Kennedy's
public defense of Wieland, Otepka happened to spot a newspa
per photograph showing Wieland chatting amiably with Castro,
so he put his men on the trail. They quickly verified that the pic
ture had been taken at the National Press Club four days after
Secretary Herter's luncheon. Before the security men finished
their investigation they discovered that Wieland had been with
Castro at least six times during the latter's brief sojourn in
Washington. On one of these occasions, at the Cuban Embassy
on April 17, 1959, Castro had been observed slipping off into
a private room with his arm wrapped affectionately around Wie
land's shoulder. They remained in the room, just the two of
them, for more than an hour.
On the basis of this information Otepka recommended to his
superiors in the State Department that the Wieland case be
reopened but nothing was done and he was sent off to Aus
tralia as Consul General.
But let us return to Havana. During the first Castro year

men on the American Embassy staff who remained sympathetic
to the Cuban leader became known, as I have said, as the
Embassy "Castro cell," although I never heard anyone imply
that there were Communists among them. At first they had
drawn comfort from the fact that most of those being dis
possessed of their property were Cubans--that the expropria
tions were not directed exclusively against Americans. Officials
in Washington and in the Embassy who had supported the
revolution now had a psychological stake in justifying their
mistake. The "agrarian reformer" label became too silly to
stick, but they continued doggedly to regard the new dictator as
nothing more than a "nationalist." Notwithstanding all that had
happened, including the massive blood-letting, they still believed
that the policy that would bring the best results, both in Cuba
and the rest of Latin America, was one of tolerant "under
standing." The leader of this Embassy group was Ambassador
Bonsal. Holding a contrary view were a growing number of
Embassy officers, headed by Minister Counselor Daniel M.
Braddock, the No. 2 man on the staff.
The pro-Castro liberals and anti-Castro conservatives in the
Embassy were equally patriotic and intelligent. They were
having the same experiences, witnessing the same events, read
ing the same reports, talking to the same people, and yet they
often emerged with diametrically opposite impressions of what
was taking place. For the more dedicated liberals the contrast
went further than differing interpretations of the same physical
facts. Often the facts themselves faded from their field of vision;
their minds selected only the impressions which harmonized with
their doctrinaire opinions. With the validity of their ideologies
at stake, they seemed to shrink from realities and seek refuge
in illusory rationalizations. In view of the increasingly evident
Communist penetration, a few were beginning to have doubts
as to whether their country was pursuing the right policy, but
BonsaI was not among these. Most of them still rated Castro
as a well-intentioned "nationalist" for whom allowances should
be made. One of them referred to Castro as "an inspired
patriot."
An ideology involves such a strong commitment to a doctrine
that when reality conflicts with the doctrine it is reality which
gives way. Communism involves a total commitment, liberalism
is looser. But during 1959 I began to realize that arguing with
a confirmed, convinced liberal was as futile as arguing with the
many Communists with whom I was dealing. The more sincere
he was, the less accessible to facts and reason. Sometimes, it
seemed, these Americans actually were swallowing uncritically
Castro's fantastic propaganda-including his brutal attacks on
their own country. But the Embassy mood was slowly changing.
Before the end of 1959 every senior officer had lined up behind
Braddock. Fewer and fewer members of the Embassy staff
supported BonsaI, who nevertheless clung to his convictions.
On October 3, 1959, government agents swooped down on

the Havana offices of the principal oil companies and stole
their geology files. Over a period of fourteen years the largest
of these-Esso, Standard of California, and Atlantic Refining,
all clients of our finn-had invested many millions in search of
oil and had drilled a number of deep wells. Although no oil
had as yet been found in commercial quantity, the companies
had budgeted extensive future programs.
The Castro regime falsely asserted that American companies
had discovered large petroleum deposits but had capped their
wells, depriving Cuba of an oil-producing industry. Simultane
ously, the public utility companies were hit by rate reductions
which made profitable operations impossible. And finally, in
spite of the deteriorating economy, a labor edict prohibited
employers from dismissing workers under any circumstances.
These measures destroyed important segments of the Cuban
economy.
The attitude of the State Department to all these radical and
alarming actions was explained by The New York Times on
October 24, 1959. "There is no inclination to exert any pres
sure upon Dr. Castro," it said. "The Department wants to main
tain a dignified, big power approach without pressure."
A day later Castro repaid that complacency with another
sharp attack on the United States. Before a large gathering at
the Presidential Palace he accused the United States of per
mitting planes to "take off from its territory to bomb the
defenseless population of Havana." It was attempting, he said,
to spread terror among the Cuban people "with inhuman, in
conceivable fury." Two days later Ambassador Bansal called
on Castro's puppet president to express "deep concern" over the
hostility with which the regime was replacing the traditional
friendship between the two countries. The President brushed off
the complaint, saying that the Ambassador's statement had no
foundation. 24
Another Castro outburst made headlines on October 21, and

here again, as in the case of Major Diaz Lanz, the issue was
Communism. One of the popular leaders of the rebel forces
was Major Hubert Matos. Before joining the Castro movement
he had been a school teacher and chaplain of the Masonic
Lodge in Santiago. When Castro took over, Matos was named
military commander of Camagiiey Province. Deeply worried
over the Communist infiltration of government, particularly in
the armed forces, Matos spoke to Castro about it, supposing
that his leader was ignorant of the situation. Later he wrote to
Castro in the same vein and with the letter submitted his
resignation.
Castro's response was to accuse Matos of being a traitor who
was trying to start a new revolution. He falsely linked him to
Urrutia and Diaz Lanz in a conspiracy. There had been no con
spiracy-Matos simply did not like what he saw happening.
Thirty-four of the officers under Matos' command declared their
support of his position, but he urged them not to resign. All
were arrested along with Major Matos and eventually were
tried as counter-revolutionary traitors.
Castro appeared as the principal witness against them. He
gave a seven-hour speech, which he arranged to have broadcast
24 Phillips. p. 120.
by television and radio throughout the island. With a micro
phone around his neck, and turning his back on the "judges,"
he harangued the prisoners, witnesses, and audience in the
motion picture theater where the trial was being staged. Calling
Matos a conspirator and a coward, he admitted that there had
been Communists in the rebel army but said that they had
fought well and that he saw no reason to expel them now. Major
Matos proclaimed his innocence and declared that the testimony
of Castro and other witnesses against him was false. He was
sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment; most of the other
officers drew sentences of two to seven years.
Again the Cuban people were shocked by this action. During
the trial, when long-distance calls were made in Havana, the
operator would often say, "Matos is not a traitor." The only
person who attempted to rationalize Castro's vindictive treat
ment of Matos, as far as I am aware, was Herbert Matthews,
who wrote: "By the logic of the Revolution, Hubert Matos was
a traitor. Those who condemn the ... way he was treated had
to condemn the Revolution." He admitted that Matos was con
victed because he "had watched the growing strength of Com
munism in the Army with alarm," but explained it as in accord
with "the logic of the Revolution." 25
Not long after this Casti:o removed two cabinet ministers who
had refused to go along with the arrest of Matos. In November
he provided proof that Matos' fears had been justified by two
other actions. He intervened personally to save the Communists
from defeat at a trade union congress, and he named "Che"
Guevara, an avowed Communist, to be president of the Na
tional Bank.
As Castro ended his first year in power, fear and despair were
spreading throughout the island. Patriots who clung to their
democratic ideas were being brought, already judged, before the
Revolutionary Courts, an institution always actuated by ven
25 Matthews, p. 155.
TIlE FIRST CASTRO YEAR 215
geance. The firing squads were again busy. More than twice
as many people had been killed in a single year than during the
seventeen years Batista had held power, and thousands had been
imprisoned. The educational institutions, from kindergarten up,
were being converted into Communist indoctrination centers.
The high hopes generated at the outset had evaporated. In
the early months Castro had made a few statements critical of
Communism that many of us found it hard to believe any secret
Communist would make publicly. But in the later months all
indications were that he was veering toward Communism. Those
of our lawyers who had worked for him at the start had become
disenchanted and returned to us by April. We had had no con
tact with Castro since August. That was the month when, for
the purpose of testing the regime's intentions, I wrote to a
prominent American friend criticizing an anti-Castro magazine
article and emphasizing the more hopeful aspects of the Cuban
scene that should bring progress and peace to the island. The
plan was to have a Cuban friend show Castro a translation and
observe his reaction. Castro read it carefully, and turned away
scornfully without comment. As a result we concluded that the
outlook was indeed dark, that probably ruinous decisions had
already been taken behind the scenes which would be put on
display in 1960. It had been a tongue-in-cheek letter but had
served its purpose.
Ambassador BonsaI, once a good friend, had become a
virtual stranger. When I ran into him occasionally, I dealt with
him as such, answering any questions with the implication that
we supported the dictator.
Bonsal's public response to Castro's scurrilous attacks against
the United States had always been gentle. Clear indications of
Communist encroachment in the regime were either ignored or
discounted. He searched for passages in written or spoken
attacks which could be interpreted as encouraging. When mem
bers of his staff drafted statements answering vicious charges
against the United States or its Embassy, he invariably found
them too vigorous. They were rewritten in more innocuous
216 DAGGER IN THE BEART
language, so as not to give offense. 26 His attitude remained con
sistently one of out-and-out accommodation.
BonsaI's stance discouraged opposition leaders, who tradi
tionally took their cue from the American Embassy. Neverthe
less, underground groups were forming and by the end of 1959
were engaging in sabotage, bombings, and other anti-regime
activities that surpassed in scope anything any earlier Chief of
State had faced.
We had a premonition that 1960 would be a black year, but
we could not conceivably imagine the catastrophic events that
would overwhelm us during the next sixteen months.
26 Paul D. Bethel, Press Attache on the Embassy staff, has authorized

these statements.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Castro's Second Year
The growing breach between the United States and Cuba was
a source of constant and increasing concern to Dr. Cubas and
myself. It occurred to us that perhaps Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt
might be instrumental in helping to heal the breach. I had met
her a few years before through her son Elliott, who had lived
in Cuba in the early 1950s. If she could be persuaded to visit
the island, perhaps to address the American Club, she could
stay at my home, and I would arrange to have Castro call on
her there.
Castro's line at this time was that he and his regime had
nothing against the American people, only against the govern
ment. He contended that once an American assumed public
office he became a lackey of the "monopolies" and of "Wall
Street." Surely, we thought, Mrs. Roosevelt could enlighten
him on the fallacies of this childish concept. The possibility, as
we discussed it, appeared hopeful enough to justify my going
to New York on this mission.
Through Elliott's ready intercession, I met there with his
mother. She was gracious as always. Why, she inquired, did I
think that she, better than anyone else, could accomplish the
purpose I had in mind? I explained that Castro was an ego
maniac, devoid of humility, and that in the normal interview
he seldom permitted anyone else to do any talking. In her case,
because she was a great lady, a fighter for social justice, and
the widow of an American President, I felt sure that he would
do some listening.
To my distress, our conversation quickly disclosed that Mrs.
Roosevelt held the standard, propaganda-fed, distorted idea of
conditions in Cuba. She thought that the Cubans had been living
for many years in poverty, hunger, and wretchedness, and that
this had produced the Communist threat.
That view seemed to me so primitive that I sought to disabuse
her. I explained that, contrary to her assumptions, the island
had enjoyed one of the highest living standards in the hemi
sphere. Cuban Communist leaders themselves recognized that
poverty is not the deciding factor in the equation of revolution.
If it were, the movement would be stronger in at least seventeen
countries of Latin America than in Cuba. It would be stronger
in Turkey than in Italy, in Saudi Arabia than in Greece. There
would be potent Communist movements in Spain and Ireland,
both exceedingly poor nations. France, I pointed out, had one
of the largest Communist Parties in the world despite its eco
nomic prosperity. In short, I argued that Communism is a
conspiratorial movement, not a reflex to poverty, and that its
leaders prefer to take over a relatively wealthy and prospering
country like Cuba.
Mrs. Roosevelt remained unconvinced. Perhaps what Cuba
really needed, she said at one point, was a "socialist" regime,
which Castro might provide. She did not, of course, use the
word "socialist" in the same sense as it is used by Communists,
to whom it means state ownership and totalitarian control of all
human activities, the economy, the press, education, thought,
everything. To her presumably it meant what it did to moderate
Social-Democratic and Labor Parties in the free world: Govern
ment ownership of the principal means of production, if the
people so determined in a free election.
Mrs. Roosevelt's false and stubbornly held assumptions about
conditions in Cuba and her feeling that the country needed
socialism frightened me. Before she came to a decision, which
fortunately was negative, I realized that her meeting with Castro
CASTRO'S SECOND YEAR
would defeat the purpose of restraining him vis-a-vis the United
States. It was easy to see how he could exploit her naive political
ideas, distorting them for his propaganda through his controlled
press and on television.
The experience is worth recounting because, while Mrs.
Roosevelt spoke only for herself, she reflected the sentiments
of the vastly influential "liberal" community in her country. It
helps explain Castro's reckless arrogance in dealing with Ameri
can rights and interests. He knew that he could count on the
wishful-thinking complacency, and even know-nothing support,
of powerful segments of the U.S. press and society.
Soon after the start of Castro's second year, on January 10,

1960, Ambassador Bonsal delivered a note to the Cuban Gov
ernment protesting the confiscation of American-owned prop
erty. The U.S. press described it as a strong note. In truth it
was weak, and Castro blandly ignored it. On national television
ten days later he accused the American Embassy of supporting
counter-revolutionary activities! 1 That was his oblique answer.
By this time Castro anti-American propaganda was flooding
not only Cuba but all of Latin America. To implement this
major and always expanding enterprise, Castro established a
news and wire service called Prensa Latina, which not only
supplied all Cuban newspapers but had outlets throughout Latin
America. It established bureaus in Washington and New York.
Its output was keyed in with the international Communist propa
ganda network. Tass (the Soviet news agency) and other press
agencies behind the Iron Curtain picked up material from Prensa
Latina, and PL disseminated propaganda from the Communist
countries.
Soon thereafter Castro set up another propaganda apparatus,
called Imprenta Nacional, a government printing house that
turned out immense quantities of books, pamphlets, posters,
1 R. Hart Phillips, The Cuban Dilemma (New York: Ivan Obolensky,

Inc., 1962), pp. 145-147.
magazines, etc. Demonstrating that itS motivation was not sim
ply "nationalistic," it employed its channels to circulate books
and other printed matter from the Soviet Union, Red China,
and other Communist sources. One of its offerings was Mao
Tse-tung's famous "thoughts" pamphlet; another was HChe"
Guevara's treatise on guerrilla warfare.
Nevertheless, Castro could have been easily toppled at the
start of 1960 if American diplomats and opinion-makers had
not persisted in looking upon him as a misguided nationalist
just a bad boy sowing some wild oats-and condoning his
excesses. There were still powerful forces-labor, business,
religious, professional-that could have united and overthrown
him if they had been given any encouragement by the State
Department. But they received not a smidgen of encouragement,
and a new era opened on February 4 when Anastas Mikoyan,
then Deputy Premier of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of
the Soviet Union, arrived in Havana.
More than a year earlier, Mikoyan had visited Washington;

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles gave him a dinner party
at the F Street Club. There had been fourteen guests, including
Mikoyan's son, members of the Soviet Embassy staff, and State
Department officials. The younger Mikoyan remarked to Deputy
Under Secretary Robert Murphy during the evening that it was
"unbelievable" that Dulles should thus be honoring his father.2
Mikoyan told the Americans present that he was planning a
good-will mission to Havana in the hope of setting up trade
relations with the Castro regime. The next day Robert Murphy,
a conservative, pointed out to his State Department colleagues
the likelihood that the "trade mission" might prove to be a
cover for subversive operations in Latin America.
2 Robert Murphy, Diplomat Among Warriors (New York: Doubleday

& Co., Inc .• 1964), p. 442. The author erroneously says Mikoyan first
visited Havana in 1958. The F Street Club records show the dinner party
as having been given early in 1959.
CASTRO'S SECOND YEAR 121
Mikoyan's visit to Cuba in early 1960 had been preceded by
almost a hundred Soviet technicians, who had organized an
industrial exhibition at the impressive Palace of Fine Arts in
the heart of Havana, constructed during the Batista administra
tion. The exhibits had been brought to Cuba from Mexico in
Soviet ships. Castro, his cabinet, and the principal Cuban Com
munist leaders were at the airport to receive their guests. An
army band played the "Internationale" as Mikoyan stepped from
the Soviet plane.
The exhibition opened the following day with all those who
had welcomed Mikoyan at the airport in attendance. As the
formal ceremonies were getting under way, shooting broke out
in nearby Parque Central. The police squelched the protesting
rioters and Mikoyan started speaking. He attacked the United
States, saying that American capitalism was an "antiquated"
system, unable to compete with the "planned production" of
the U.S.S.R. The previous day Guevara had announced that
Cuba did not want foreign investments and that the government
would insist on owning 51 percent of all basic industries. S
Carmen and I attended the exhibition. I had seen several
similar ones abroad, but few Cubans had ever seen anything
like it, and they were impressed. There were excellent models
of sputnik satellites, with recorded explanations. Television re
ceivers showed beautifully colored scenes of Russia. A model
of a TU-114 passenger airplane, described as having a capacity
of 225 passengers and a speed of 500 miles an hour, attracted
much attention.
Young propagandists circulated among the crowd, feigning
discussions on Soviet industrial progress, culture, and the great
ness of Soviet civilization. We spotted them immediately as
Soviet agents, but it was obvious that most of those who paused
to listen did not. In stalls Russian souvenir gadgets were on sale
for a few pennies-hammer-and-sickle pins and sman red flags.
3 Phillips, p. 153.
DAGGER IN THE HEART
The booths contained an abundance of Communist literature,
including biographies of Lenin and Marx. One could learn how
to speak Russian for a dime.
The only thing on sale that intrigued us was caviar. Moments
later I lost Carmen in the milling crowd and found her at the
caviar booth-urging Cubans not to buy. Carmen had always
found it difficult to disguise her dislike for anything Communist,
in spite of my admonitions that our problem was now one of
survival.
When the exhibition closed on February 26, it was announced
that 450,000 had paid admission. This probably was no exag
geration, in view of the crowds we had observed. The show had
indeed been a success, and we regretted that the United States
had never sponsored a comparable undertaking in Cuba.
Except for three or four public appearances, Mikoyan's
whereabouts and activities were shrouded in secrecy during the
nine days he remained in Cuba. On February 7 he spoke over
a national television and radio hookup. Soviet scientific progress,
he boasted, had outstripped that of the United States, as proven
by the Russian space probe Lunik, which had taken the first
pictures of the other side of the moon the year before.
Six days after Mikoyan's arrival the Castro regime and the
Soviets signed a five-year commercial agreement under which
the U.S.S.R. granted Cuba $100 million of credit to buy Soviet
industrial equipment.
When Mikoyan departed on February 13, with a rousing
send-off by Castro and his entourage, the police began a mass
roundup of anti-Communists. At this time my friend Ruby
Phillips, the resident correspondent of The New York Times
(now often referred to by Cuban exiles as The New York Tass),
told me that she had been heartened to find that James Reston,
who had just visited Havana, agreed with her that Castro was
moving toward Communism. She saw in Reston a hope of
neutralizing Matthews, who still strongly supported the regime.
Thus was the shadow of the evil Mikoyan first cast on the
CASTRO'S SECOND YEAR ll3
Pearl of the Antilles. The events which were taking place so
close to the United States seemed unreal to us, almost unbe
lievable. They often reminded me of the Chinese legend Robert
Murphy relates in his splendid book, Diplomat Among Warriors.
A philosopher dreamed he was a butterfly. The dream had
been so vivid that when he awoke he did not know whether he
was a man who had dreamed he was a butterfly fluttering among
the flowers, or whether he was a butterfly who was now dream
ing that he was a man.
Many subsequent events were to recall this sense of unreality.
I have in mind, for instance, the occasion, in late 1962, when
the Kennedy administration would in effect accept Mikoyan as
a mediator to obtain from Castro permission for on-site inspec
tions 4-the only conclusive assurance that Soviet offensive mis
siles had really been removed from Cuba. The United States was
willing to rely on the man who had been largely responsible for
Communist intrusion in Cuba! The result, predictably, was nil.
On March 4, 1960, the French freighter La Coubre blew up

in Havana harbor while unloading munitions within a few yards
of shops and residences. The tremendous explosion killed almost
a hundred people and did great property damage.
Castro at once accused the United States of having plotted
the destruction. In a frenetic funeral oration at the cemetery
he described the United States as "a vulture feeding upon hu
manity." "We do not have proof," Castro shouted, "but we have
a right to believe that they [the Americans] are the guilty ones!"
Every Cuban with whom I spoke was convinced that the acci
dent had been caused by careless handling of explosives and, in
fact, the Cuban Government never produced the slightest evi
dence to support its charge. The only support of the sabotage
theory came from Matthews, who said he had been shown what
appeared to be a detonating device picked up near the dock.1i
4 Murphy, p. 443.
5 Phillips, p. 173.

About this time the extensive and valuable properties of our
client, Amadeo Barletta, who represented General Motors in
Cuba, were seized. Among these were the newspaper El Mundo,
which had refused to accept subsidies from Batista, and also the
second largest radio-television station in Cuba. The charges
against Barletta, a courageous Italian citizen, were completely
fictitious, and we worked hard in his defense. Castro was movin&
from one pretext to another to destroy the free enterprise econ
omy. Barletta's popular son, Amadeo Barletta, Jr., was an
American citizen who had served with the United States Army
in World War II. Both were widely known and highly regarded.
Father and son took refuge in the Italian Embassy and after a
few weeks, since an exit permit was not forthcoming, I offered
to run them across the Florida Straits from Varadero in my
sixteen-foot launch. Fortunately the capable Italian Ambassador
arranged their escape in a manner less hazardous than the one
I had proposed.
In April 1960 I made a final effort to keep Castro within the

Western world. Through Rufo L6pez-Fresquet, the Minister of
Fin.ance, I offered to go to Washington at my own expense to
negotiate the purchase of arms. We knew that Castro planned a
military build-up, and my partner and I reasoned that unless
the United States furnished the arms he would turn to the Soviet
Union. The Minister was pro-American, married to an American
girl whom he had met at Columbia University while a student
there. He lost no time in conferring with Castro, who rejected
the suggestion scornfully. The experience provoked L6pez
Fresquet's resignation from the Cabinet.
This incident later gave rise to press comment in the United
States by seasoned observers of the Cuban scene. They assumed,
and the Minister of Finance himself erroneously reported, that
I had acted covertly for the U.S. Government. The fact was that
the idea was entirely my own, as I tried emphatically to make
clear to the Minister at the time. I had not even discussed it with
BonsaI, although I had planned to inform him before proceeding
CASTRO'S SECOND YEAR us
to Washington. Its significance was that it confirmed, beyond a
doubt, that Castro had already cast his lot with the Soviets prior
to April 1960.
By this time the economy of the country was slowing down,

visibly and dangerously. The housing program that the govern
ment had launched with much ballyhoo had come almost to a
halt. Imports from the United States dried up, and government
public works projects were abandoned. The dislocation in the
economy became apparent to everyone. The organization of
state "cooperatives" took the place of the promised redistribu
tion of land to small individual farmers, resulting in rising food
costs and unrest. Above all, the Cubans were becoming dis
illusioned by the growing Communist influence in government.
Anti-Castro sentiment was clearly rising.
On April 21, 1960, The New York Times published an article
in which three journalists expressed their views on the develop
ing Cuban trends. CoL Jules Dubois of the Chicago Tribune said
that Communists were in control of Cuba and advocated giving
Castro "enough rope to hang himself." Joseph Alsop, the syndi
cated columnist, urged "patience," Matthews said the Castro
regime was characterized by "extreme nationalism," but that
he saw no signs that the Communists dominated it. He appealed
for a more sympathetic understanding of the Revolution, which
he said could not be stopped.
At first the peasants and workers had welcomed the measures
by which the middle and upper classes were being stripped of
their possessions, but now the regime was demanding sacrifices
from them too. The workers were asked to make a "voluntary"
contribution of 4 percent of their salaries toward an "industriali
zation" program, and anyone who dared to protest was in danger
of reprisals. One after another the labor and social gains which
the Cuban worker had achieved through forty years of struggle
were being abrogated. All Cuban Presidents, including Batista,
had feared and respected the powerful Confederation of Cuban
Workers, but now legislation was decreed which deprived the
workers of the right to strike. Henceforth labor grievances would
be decided by the Labor Minister, and employers would be
required to hire workers through the Ministry.
On May 7, 1960 Cuba resumed the diplomatic relations with

the Soviet Union that had been broken off in April 1952, shortly
after Batista had assumed power. Two days later President
Sukarno of Indonesia arrived for a five-day sojourn in Havana
and was warmly received by Castro. He had stopped off en
route in the United States, where the liberal press reported that
he was motivated by the ideals of Washington, Jefferson, and
Lincoln-he had said so himself. Shortly after his return to
Indonesia he stole property worth more than $2 billion from
Dutch owners.
When Cuba began to receive goods from the Soviet Union
under the trade agreement of February 1960, in exchange for
sugar, the first commodity to arrive was Russian crude oiL Pre
viously the Cuban gasoline consumption had been dependent
on the Esso and Shell refineries in Havana and the Texaco
refinery in Santiago de Cuba. These refineries had been obtain
ing crude oil from American and British oil fields in Venezuela.
At this time the Cuban Government owed these companies ap
proximately $60 million. Now, in June 1960, HChe" Guevara,
who had become President of the National Bank, notified the
three refineries that they would have to process the Russian
crude. When they contested the arbitrary order, the Castro
regime seized the refineries, valued at approximately $140 mil
lion, and canceled the Cuban Government's $60-million debt to
the companies. ]n another violent speech Castro declared that he
would take all property away from Americans "down to the last
nails in their shoes." 6
On June 30 the regime "intervened" Havana's two leading
hotels, the Havana Hilton and the National, accusing them of
having failed to develop American tourist travel. Previously it
6 Ibid., p. 223.
had taken over a number of small hotels and night clubs. We
were the lawyers for Hilton and had arranged the local financing
for the construction of the $24-million hotel. Everything possible
had been done to encourage tourist trade, if only as a matter of
self-interest, but Castro told the hotel workers that owing to the
"aggressions" of the United States, Cuba had no American
tourists. "And these aggressions have only a single purpose,"
he shouted, "to strangle us economically, create unemployment
and hunger in our country." 7 Shortly after the takeover the
government did what it had not permitted the hotel owners to
do--it cut wages and dismissed the surplus personnel.
For many years the United States had been Cuba's best
customer and largest supplier. In 1957, for instance, it bought
58 percent of Cuba's exports, chiefly sugar, and sold Cuba 71
percent of her import requirements. The preferential trade agree
ment between the two countries was beneficial to both. The
price of Cuban sugar in the American market was considerably
higher than the world price, since. U.S. sugar legislation, through
a system of import quotas to certain off-shore producers, con
trolled competition and managed prices as a protection for
American growers.
Fixed sugar quotas were assigned to Puerto Rico, the Philip
pines, Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands, and Cuba was allotted a
percentage of the U.S. consumption not filled by these quotas. hl
July 1960 Cuba had been authorized to ship to the United States
700,000 tons of sugar during the balance of the year, with the
likelihood that this figure would be raised by an additional
165,000 tons. But on July 6, 1960, a year and a half after
Castro had come to power, the United States took the first
reprisal against Cuba. With Congressional authority, but against
the recommendation of Ambassador Bonsal, 8 President Eisen
hower closed the door to these shipments. The action repre
1 Ibid., p. 220.
8 Philip W. BonsaI, "Cuba, Castro and the United States," Foreign
AfJairs. January 1967, p. 273.
2Z8 DAGGER IN THE HEART
sented a loss of Cuban sugar sales to the American market of
approximately $113 million.
Castro had been expecting this action for many months and
Guevara had taunted the United States to take it, "the sooner
the better." Up to this time every step directed against American
interests had been represented in a defensive light, as a response
to American "aggression." And in July 1960, although Castro
at first called the reprisal a "blessing" which would make Cuba
"the indisputable master of the world sugar market," 9 his
tirades rose to a pitch of hysteria.
Three days after the Cuban sugar quota was cut, Nikita
Khrushchev offered to help Castro fight this sanction, adding
for good measure that the Soviets would provide "rocket sup
port" if the United States attempted to intervene. President
Eisenhower reacted strongly, warning Khrushchev that the
United States would not tolerate the establishment of a regime
dominated by international Communism in the Western Hemi
sphere. In spite of this warning, arms from the Communist bloc
started pouring into Cuba. An estimated 22,000 tons of arma
ment arrived there between the first of August and the end of
October, at which time Castro boasted that he had 250,000
militiamen equipped with Soviet bloc weapons.
In late 1959 and early 1960 the Castro regime, encouraged

by the State Department's appeasement policy, had taken funda
mental decisions and their consequences would now be seen, in
late 1960. Between August 5 and October 14, five edicts
were promulgated confiscating all of the remaining important
privately owned property, both Cuban and American. The
measures, which read like criminal indictments, covered hun
dreds of concerns, ranging from nationwide public utility ser
vices, banks, sugar mills, railroads, and industrial plants of all
kinds, to small motion picture theaters.
Since this massive transformation involved far more Cuban
9 Phillips, p. 225.
CASTRO'S SECOND YEAR
than American-owned property, it could not easily be charged
to U.S. "aggression." During those nine weeks Cuba's free enter
prise system was finally destroyed. The five edicts were the
quietus. Our miraculous free market, which produced the order
derived from millions of economic decisions made independently
of one another in the marketplace, had been replaced by a non
competitive monopolistic society in which freedom would be
impossible.
The dynamic competition which had kept things moving, im
proving, and which had been an economizer as well, was can
celed out. The Cubans would now be hearing and stepping to
a different drummer. Economic decisions would be made and
imposed by a handful of arrogant, inexperienced bureaucrats,
dominated by a thirty-one-year-old lawyer who had never had
clients and by a doctor who had never had patients. None of us
doubted that within a short time the country's economic fabric
would be in shreds.
On September 26 Castro descended on New York to address
the United Nations. The delegates to the world body were treated
to one of his marathon orations, this one lasting four hours, in
which he vented his hatred of the United States and expressed
his high regard for the Soviet Union and what it represented. He
referred to Senator John F. Kennedy, then the Democratic candi
date for President, as an "illiterate and ignorant millionaire." 16
Nikita Khrushchev was in New York for this occasion at the
UN General Assembly, and the pair embraced while photog
raphers recorded the love affair. Even the State Department
now realized that Castro was pro-Communist, at the very least.
One of the greatest humiliations suffered by the United States

was the confiscation of the great U.S. Government-owned Nicaro
Nickel plant in eastern Cuba.
Nickel is the mineral that makes steel hard and heat-resistant.
It is a critical element in the manufacture of armor plate, gun
10 Ibid., p. 254.
forgings, and airplane engines. Neither the U.S.A. nor the
U.S.S.R. produces nickel domestically. During World War II
the mineral was in short supply in both countries; the U.S. war
time stockpile never had more than a two-month reserve. In
1960 it was the one Cuban product which both the Americans
and Soviets needed most.
The Cuban Nicaro project was conceived two months after
Pearl Harbor, when our client, Freeport Sulphur Company,
developed a new chemical process for extracting nickel from the
low-grade Cuban ore, and Washington approved the financing.
Construction was started in 1942, during the Batista regime,
and the plant was built on an isolated peninsula in the jungles
of Eastern Cuba, when many deadly Nazi U-boats operated in
the surrounding waters.
The Nicaro facilities cost the American taxpayers more than
$100 million. Eventually the plant produced approximately 10
percent of the nickel of the free world. The success of the project
represented one of the great wartime achievements of private
American industry. Our firm had been associated with it since
before the blueprint stage, when we were consulted by Wash
ington on the most appropriate procedure for acquiring the
extensive plant site. Subsequently we devoted close to 40,000
hours of service to the Nicaro project.
On October 24, 1960, the Castro regime confiscated this
extraordinarily valuable U.S. Government-owned war industry
and placed it at once at the disposal of the Soviet Union. To this
day it remains incredible that the United States permitted this
action. No imagination is needed to know what would have
happened if the situation were in reverse-if a vital war plant
built by the Soviet Union on a small island in the Black Sea a
hundred miles from Odessa had been stolen and operated for
the benefit of the United States.
The Urban Reform Law of October 14, 1960, was no less

confiscatory than its agricultural counterpart of May 1959. It
was a staggering blow to the large middle class. In Cuba the
preferred, almost universal form of investment had always been
real estate, either by erecting a building for leasing purposes,
often with living quarters reserved for the owner, or by lending
funds for home construction against mortgage security.
The "Reform" canceled outright all leases and mortgages,
leaving the former owners entitled to only a trifling state pension.
Lessees became "potential owners" of the occupied premises.
Thereafter they and mortgagees would pay the rent or interest
to the state. If they paid punctually, including the real estate
taxes (which were now their responsibility), they would become
owners after a period of years, depending upon the age of the
building. Repairs would also have to be paid by the "potential"
owner. The law allowed no flexibility; delinquency meant the
loss of all rights.
In the early months of the Castro regime hundreds of thou
sands of lessees had fallen behind in paying their rent, either
because the landlord chC'se to be lenient or because the courts
refused to evict. Now all arrears would have to be paid-the
state had become a ruthless landlord. Thousands of tenants
refused to sign the government forms that would qualify them
as potential owners, feeling that they would be stealing another's
property.
Understandably, the Urban Reform Law was generally un
popular. It brought tragedy to all who had invested their life
savings in a house or in a mortgage. We knew of countless cases
of humble people, including our servants and office workers,
who had put every cent they could save into real estate. These
people were left with only an insignificant state pension.
The year 1960 was no less a black one for the Cuban legal
profession. In addition to the horror of the Revolutionary Court
trials, it became necessary to establish many legal actions against
the government in the regular courts. Ruthless confiscations had
to be contested under threat of being accused of counter-revolu
tionary activities-a capital offense.
It is a rule of law that in order to establish a claim in the
international field for restitution, or compensation for losses, the
claimant must first exhaust his local legal remedies. The State
Department will not, as a rule, espouse the claim of an American
citizen unless he can show that he has no local remedy. Thus,
except in the cases where the confiscatory measure itself specified
that no appeal could be taken against it, actions against the
government had to be carried through all available legal pro
cedures until final negative rulings had been obtained from the
Cuban Supreme Court. It was a foregone conclusion that these
decisions would be adverse, since the judiciary had been
"purged"; nevertheless, they were indispensable in order to lay
the groundwork for future legal action after the fall of the Castro
regime.
I imagine few lawyers have had the singular experience of
having to dispute their own clients' insistent wishes to overpay
them for professional services, but that is what happened to us
in 1960. Anxious to avoid having their funds fall into Castro's
hands, clients often asked us to make from five to ten times the
normal charge. In one case I was asked to submit a statement
for $100,000 for a job that warranted a fee of $5,000! We
pointed out that making charges or receiving fees that could not
be justified would undoubtedly be regarded as "counter-revolu
tionary" actions when government agents later examined the
accounts. These suggestions, however, typified the attitude of
our clients, especially the American companies, from whom we
received only unaffected consideration and kindness during this
difficult period.
On October 20, 1960, Washington called Ambassador BonsaI

home for consultation, and the American colony in Havana
hoped that he would not come back. His policy of unlimited
accommodation with the Communist regime, accommodation
amounting to appeasement, had been a matter of public knowl
edge. Yet, throughout his stay in Cuba he enjoyed the support
of liberal American journalists and columnists-with one quix
otic exception: Herbert Matthews once complained that Bonsal
could see only the American point of view, that the Cuban point
of view made no sense to him! 11
With the departure of Bonsal, Minister Counsellor Daniel M.
Braddock remained in charge of the Embassy. Braddock, whose
unassuming looks and manner belied his strength of character,
enjoyed the respect of his entire staff. He had made no secret
of his disagreement with the "soft" Washington policies that his
Ambassador was implementing.
As early as December 1959, during a previous period of
several months when he had been in charge, he had informed
the Department that he and the country team, which included
all the senior officers of the Embassy, were unanimously of the
opinion that the United States would be unable to do business
with Castro. He had given the reasons that led them to this
conclusion, adding, of course, that their finding should be
checked with the Ambassador, who might hold different views
-as indeed he did. Braddock favored a firm policy line, and
one that would put the onus for the break in relations, when it
came, on Cuba rather than on the United States.
Later events, of course, confirmed that judgment. Since all
efforts by Washington to find a common ground of understand
ing with the new regime had failed, Braddock felt that further
forbearance on its part weakened the confidence and will of all
the forces in Cuba opposed to Castro and eroded the respect of
other countries in the hemisphere for the United States. From
this position he never deviated.
Our American friends and clients hoped, wishfully, that
BonsaI's recall would mark a change in American attitudes
toward Castro. We were heartened by their faith that their
powerful country would not long permit the Communist usurpers
to bring ruin to Cuba and to those of its own citizens who had
11 Herbert L. Matthews, The Cuban Story (New York: George

Braziller, 1962). pp. 72, 73.
shared their fortunes and lives with us. That hope was never
abandoned until after the Missile Crisis, almost three years
later.
Because the 1960 Presidential campaign was so important

to Cuba's destiny, Carmen and I made a trip to the United States
to observe it at first hand. Some of John F. Kennedy's statements
on Cuba during 1960 had given us real concern. His trips to
Havana in 1957 and 1958 had been "fun" visits, purely social.
He had compared the Castro revolution to the American revo
lution and early in 1960 the author of Profiles in Courage had
written in The Strategy of Peace that Castro was "part of the
legacy of Bolivar." 12 He voiced the belief that failure of the
United States to give Cuba sufficient aid had paved the way for
Communist subversion.
"We used the influence of our government to advance the
interests and increase the profits of the private American com
panies, which dominated the island's economy," he said in a
campaign speech in Cincinnati in early October. IS This, of
course, was poppycock. My associates and I know of no instance
where U.S. Government influence was sought, or used incor
rectly, to advance the interests of American companies or in
crease their profits. The plain fact was that Cuba had long
enjoyed a handsome subsidy on her sales of sugar in the Ameri
can market and that American capital had contributed enor
mously to raising the living standard of the Cuban people. These
Kennedy statements had amazed us. They sounded remarkably
like the very arguments Castro had been advancing for con
fiscating American properties.
Nevertheless, when on October 19 Richard Nixon came out
with a strong anti-Castro statement, saying that a number of
steps were planned to "eradicate the cancer in our hemisphere,"
Senator Kennedy hit back hard the following day. He called
12 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (Boston: Houghton

lS/bid., p. 225.
Nixon's new policy "too little and too late." The Republicans,
he said, had ignored repeated warnings and had stood helplessly
by while the Russians established a new satellite only ninety
miles from American shores. He called the Republican record
an "incredible history of blunder, inaction, retreat and failure,"
adding, "We must attempt to strengthen the non-Batista demo
cratic anti-Castro forces in exile, and in Cuba itself, who offer
eventual hope of overthrowing Castro. Thus far these fighters
for freedom have had virtually no support from our govern
ment." 14
It was a strong speech and we had no reason for doubting its
truth. Watching the television debates and following the
speeches, Carmen and I had the feeling that of the two, Kennedy
was tougher on Communism and Castro than the Vice President.
We were therefore pleased when he won.
We could not know, any more than the electorate did, that
strong action had already been initiated. As Nixon would write
in the Reader's Digest of November 1964,15 the Eisenhower
administration "had been doing exactly what Kennedy seemed
to be advocating-supporting and training Cuban exiles so
that they could free Cuba from Communist control." Unfortu
nately for himself, -though he .had known this for months, the
Republican candidate had to keep silent because "this was a
top-secret CIA project," known only to the President, himself,
and two other Cabinet members. "To protect the security of the
program," he could only bite his lip in frustration and allow his
adversary to present himself as the stronger champion of Ameri
can help to the forces of Cuban liberation.
The first Christmas under the Castro regime, the year before,
had been called a "Revolutionary Christmas." Santa Claus, who
had been almost as much a part of the life of the Cuban child
14 Tbeodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965),

p.205.
15 Richard M. Nixon, "Cuba, Castro and John F. Kennedy," Readers
Digest, November S, 1964, p. 288.
as of American youngsters, had been banished as an "im
perialist" but, except in the eastern province of Oriente, the peo
ple had been gay and had feasted and danced in the streets as
in the past. Revolutionary organizations had collected donations,
and the usual Christmas packages had been distributed to the
poor. In 1960 the situation was changed.
A favorite Christmas decoration in Cuba had been the Na
tivity, but now it was rarely seen. There was no dancing in the
streets, which were patrolled by militiamen and soldiers carrying
Czech Tommy guns. There was little food in the marketplace,
a small number of chickens and turkeys, a few pigs. Disorders
broke out in the markets as people fought over the limited sup
ply. The traditional pears, nuts, figs, dates, and other Christmas
luxuries were not to be seen. Across from the newly renamed
Habana Libre Hotel, now government-operated, a huge bill
board had been erected depicting the birth of Christ in a Cuban
bohio. The Three Wise Men were painted to resemble Castro,
Guevara, and the illiterate Negro Chief of the Army, Major
Almeida. The gifts they bore were Agrarian Reform, Urban
Reform, and The Year of Education.
Every night during the holiday season bombs exploded in
Havana, and there was widespread sabotage. There were reports
of torture of arrested people by electrical devices and other
sadistic methods. No doubt some of these were exaggerated, but
they mirrored the existing uncertainty and fear. Certainly torture
and killing under the Castro regime surpassed by far anything
that had been known previously. One of my friends told me of
a boy he saw lying on a bunk at G-2 headquarters in Miramar,
his face so badly beaten that it was unrecognizable. A common
form of mental torture was to notify a prisoner that he was to
be executed without a trial (as in my own case), but to have
the firing squad use blanks.
On the day before Christmas, three hundred Americans
arrived in Cuba under the auspices of the Fair Play for Cuba
Committee, headed by Carleton Beals. The Committee had
received funds from the Castro regime for its organizational
activities. There were about a hundred starry-eyed American
college students in the group. Two days later the first contingent
of Soviet tourists arrived in Cuba.
All the same, as 1960 drew to a close, there was ·a strong
undercurrent of expectancy and hope in Havana, largely because
of the outcome of the Presidential election in the United States.
Kennedy's campaign oratory against Castro had been balm for
our battered spirits. And when I learned from a completely
reliable source in late December that the United States was
secretly training Cuban exiles, this was the best news of all.
For New Year's Day 1961, the Castro regime planned a huge
mass meeting to celebrate the second anniversary of the Revo
lution. Delegates from Latin America and from all Communist
countries had been pouring into Havana for several days at
government expense. But on New Year's Eve, one of the largest
department stores in Havana, La Epoca, was sabotaged and
burned to the ground. Fires broke out in several places at the
same time, and as the firemen fought vainly to control them,
bombs exploded in other parts of the city. The anti-Castro un
derground was performing at peak efficiency without endanger
ing the populace. Some of its members raced in cars through
the capital, distributing anti-Castro literature.
It was against this background that Castro first displayed his
military strength, in a parade on January 2, 1961, which lasted
from eleven in the morning until nightfalI. There were heavy
and medium Soviet tanks, truck-drawn field artillery, rocket
launchers, and anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns. The marchers
carried machine guns, bazookas, and mortars that had come
from the Soviet bloc. It was nightfall when Castro began one of
his most hysterical speeches. He called on the American Em
bassy to reduce its staff to eight members within forty-eight
hours. He charged that the Embassy had three hundred officials,
of whom 80 percent were FBI and CIA spies. Actually the Em
bassy at that time had about seventy-five American officials and
two hundred Cuban employees. Castro claimed that it was the
center of all counter-revolutionary activities against his regime.
"We are going to eliminate all these criminals," he shouted.
As he paused to catch his breath, organizers called for chants,
much as cheerleaders do at a football game, and the mob echoed
the mad slogans. It was amazing to see with what ease human
beings could be brought to a pitch of hysteria.
Thus was the United States forced to break diplomatic rela
tions with Cuba. The announcement was made in Washington
at 8 P.M. on January 3, 1961.
During January The New York Times rendered another
service to the Castro-Communist cause. It published a story
from Guatemala saying that anti-Castro forces were being
trained at a "partly hidden air field in the Cordillera foothills a
few miles back from the Pacific." 16 It would have been difficult
to render Castro a greater service at that time. He had been pre
dicting an invasion for weeks and had mounted anti-aircraft
guns along the Havana waterfront, installed cannons on the
hills surrounding the city, and stationed military units at beaches
and inlets. But when nothing happened the invasion fever began
to die down. Now the Times had given him just what he
needed.
It was shortly after this that Peru demanded of the United
States that it exercise leadership in the fight against Communism.
The Peruvian Premier said, "If the United States does not step
forward now with dynamic leadership to uproot the unceasing
conspiracy of the Soviet Union and Red China on our shores,
Latin America is lost ... as is also the United States." 17
As the time for the Bay of Pigs invasion drew nearer, sabotage
increased. The Hershey sugar mill warehouse and two con
fiscated Woolworth stores were set afire. On April 14, Cuba's
largest department store, EI Encanto, was burned to the ground.
Throughout the island, towns and cities resounded to explosions
as government buildings and plants were bombed. Again the
111Phillips, p. 295.
IT/bid., p. 312.

night skies reflected the flames of burning cane fields, all symbols
of the mounting opposition to Castro and Communism.
And the invasion was coming! We did not know precisely
when or where, but it would be soon, and Cuba would again be
free.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Mystery of Castro's
Communism
By the end of 1960 the Castro regime had confiscated more than
$25 billion of privately owned Cuban property and almost $1
billion of property owned by Americans. It had communized
Cuba in two years, less than a third of the time it took the Bol
sheviks to communize Russia.
The question of when and why Castro embraced Communism
remains a topic of endless discussion and dispute among Cubans.
It is one which Castro himself is perhaps unable to answer.
Never noted for consistency, his public and private utterances
may be used to support either of two schools of thought: (1)
that he was a secret Communist even before he landed from a
small boat on the coast of Oriente province on December 2,
1956, or (2) that he became a Communist months after at
taining power in 1959.
One may argue convincingly in support of either theory.
Those who hold to the "secret Communist" belief point to
Castro's participation in the Communist-inspired Bogotazo of
1948, to the fact that his brother RaUl was known to be a Com
munist, and to the fact that Fidel Castro associated with Com
munists in Mexico in 1955-1956, when "Che" Guevara, a
known and dedicated Communist, joined his small band of con
spirators. But mainly they rely on his own statement of Decem
THE MYSTERY OF CASTRO'S COMMUNISM 241
ber 22, 1961, which implied that he had purposely concealed
having been a Marxist-Leninist while in the Sierra Maestra.
"Of course," he then said, "if we had stopped at the Pico
Turquino, when there were very few of us, and said, 'We are
Marxists-Leninists; possibly we would not have been able to
get down to the plain. Thus we called it something else; we did
not broach the subject; we raised other questions that people
understood perfectly." 1
The second school of thought-that Castro was not a full
fledged Communist when he came to power on January 1, 1959
-is the position of the CIA. 2 Strong arguments may be ad
vanced in support of it. His university classmates in 1948 did
not regard him as a Communist at the time. During his im
prisonment on the Isle of Pines in 1953-1955 he was not taken
to be one. It was during this period that he revised to its later
published form his "History Will Absolve Me" speech, origi
nally delivered at his trial in 1953, following the Moncada as
sault. The pamphlet called for adherence to the 1940 Constitu
tution and for setting up a government "of popular election." It
contained no reference to state ownership of property, other
than a minor reference to "nationalization" of the American
owned electric power and telephone companies.
When he was first accused of being a Communist, in a Cuban
magazine article in July 1959, Castro hit back hard, charging
that this was a plot fomented by Batista and the U.S. Embassy.
He associated Batista with the Cuban Communist Party, the
Partido Socialista Popular, pointing to the support it had given
Batista in the 1940 Presidential election. The PSP, in fact, had
criticized Castro's attack on the Moncada barracks in 1953, re
ferring to it as "putschism" and hence "bourgeois," heroic but
1 Theodore Draper, Castroism: Theory and Practice (New York:

Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), p. 17.
2 On November 5, 1959, more than ten months after Castro carne to
power, General C. P. Cabell, Deputy Director of the CIA, testified
before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee that the CIA did not
believe Castro was a member of the Communist Party.
doctrinally false and futile, and as late as the abortive general
strike of April 1958 the PSP blamed its failure on its "unilateral
call," issued by Castro "without counting on the rest of the op
position" to Batista.
Castro's "Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra," of July 12, 1957,
drafted and signed by him and by two moderates, stated that his
rebels were fighting for a "truly free democratic" regime under
constitutional government and called for general elections at the
end of one year, outlining a ten-point program that included
"absolute guarantee of freedom of information, of the ... press,
and of all the individual and political rights guaranteed by the
Constitution [of 1940]." The publication of this program was
not suppressed by Batista. It was run in Cuba's most popular
magazine, Bohemia. Furthermore, Castro's public statements
from 1956 to 1958 appeared to be increasingly moderate. Al
most always he advocated support of the 1940 Constitution. On
one occasion he called for recognition of the rights of "free en
terprise and invested capital." Even the first draft of an Agrarian
Reform Law (Law No. 3 of the Sierra Maestra, dated October
10, 1958) which Castro signed with three colleagues, one of
whom was later executed, made no mention of "cooperatives" or
"state farms."
Those who contend that Castro was not a Communist when
he took power also point to his anti-Communist public state
ments during the first few months of his regime. Americans
heard many such statements, uttered with apparent sincerity,
when he visited the United States at the invitation of the
American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1959. Prior to ad
dressing the editors on April 15, he spent the morning with
members of the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committee.
Although it was a closed-door meeting, legislators who were
present reported that Castro had expressed opposition to Com
munism. Most of those who heard him were favorably im .'
pressed. One exception was Sen. George Smathers, of Florida,
who later predicted that trouble was brewing in the Caribbean
area. Another who met with Castro privately on his visit to the
United States and sized him up as a dangerous radical, probably
under Communist influence, was the late C. D. Jackson, the
perceptive publisher of Life.
When Castro appeared before the fifteen hundred editors, he
again gave the impression that he was a moderate liberal who
wanted to give the Cuban people a good government, be a good
neighbor, and live up to international agreements. At the end
of his talk he was roundly applauded. The following Sunday,
on the Meet the Press television show, he assured Americans, "I
don't agree with Communism." A day later he appeared at a
National Press Club luncheon and again denounced Com
munism. Discussing Khrushchev, he said, "Whatever the nature
of dictatorship--class dictator, military dictator, or dictatorship
of the oligarchy-we are opposed to it. That is why we are
against Communism."
For a short time, a matter of a very few weeks, he continued
to talk in this vein. "Communism kills man by wiping out his
freedom," he said on April 28, and a month later he referred to
Communism as a system which suppresses liberties and sacri
fices man. He even accused the Cuban Communists of conspir
ing with counter-revolutionaries. 8 It is difficult to imagine a true
Communist publicly making statements of this nature. A leftist
non-Communist, on the other hand, might logically have sought
and accepted Communist support in the struggle against the
right-wing Batista. With respect to Castro's "confession" of
December 22, 1961, that he had concealed his Marxist-Leninist
beliefs while "there were very few of us" in the mountains, these
theorists argue that he was merely, at that late date, attempting
to make his famous "I am a Marxist-Leninist" statement, pro
nounced three weeks earlier, appear to be a logical consequence
of the past. Standing alone, they contend, it is not conclusive.
Castro's own account 4 of his "conversion" is that he had al
3 Draper,p. 37.
4Herbert L. Matthews, Return to Cuba (Stanford University: Institute,
of Hispanic American and Luso-Brazilian Studies, 1964).
ways been "predisposed" toward Marxism but did not formally
become a Communist until mid-l 960, after he had been in
power a year and a half. He had entered the University of
Havana with ideas influenced by his early upbringing as the son
of a landowner, educated by Jesuits, he says. He began reading
Marxist literature while there but did not join the Communist
Party, although he had radical liberal ideas. He thought of him
self as an agitator, a revolutionary who could obtain reforms
within the democratic system, and while in the Sierra was still
thinking in such "utopian" terms. The pressure of subsequent
events, he insists, forced him to choose Marxism. When he
came to power his radical ideas split the country into Right and
Left. He says he found the Communists to be honest, trained,
and loyal, and he needed them. So, according to his own ver
sion, he moved into a Marxist-Leninist position in 1960.
This we now know: The disciplined Cuban Communist Party
did not approve of Castro's Moncada adventure in 1953. It did
not approve of his "invasion" of Cuba in 1956 on the Granma,
bought with funds provided by ex-President Prio Socarras. Nor
did it approve of his unilateral call for a general strike on April
9, 1958. But in February 1958 it ordered several young Com
munists to join Castro's forces in the Sierra Maestra. The Com
munist leader Carlos Rafael Rodriguez himself went into the
mountains to offer the Party's support in July, six months
later. Presumably there was an alliance at this stage, possibly
a fusion.
My own belief is that Castro, known to be a radical, a gang
ster-type terrorist even during his university days, and vehe
mently anti-American, was certainly "predisposed" toward Com
munism long before he came to power, as he himself admits.
The pressures which eventually led him formally to embrace
Communism, I believe, resided largely in his own character,
defined as early as 1948, when he participated in the Colombia
uprising. A police official who examined his luggage when he
departed for Bogota on that occasion told my partner that the
only evidence lacking of Castro's Communist affiliation was a
Party card. Among his effects was a considerable .assortment of
anti-American and pro-Communist literature.
Eleven years later, lacking balanced judgment, devoid of
administrative and economic experience, driven by an abnormal
egotism combined with a charismatic ability to sway the masses,
little Cuba may have seemed to him too small a stage. He easily
visualized himself as the leader of a revolution which would
sweep the whole of Latin America.
Toward the end of 1959 Batista had been gone for almost a
year, and every conceivable measure had been taken against
him and his followers. To provoke a revolution embracing many
nations, an exciting and challenging enemy was needed and the
logical one, in Castro's mind, was the Colossus of the North.
To his profound surprise he had found the United States any
thing but formidable, and every passing day gave him addi
tional proof that it was politically confused, gullible, and vac
illating.
If that was his state of mind, the State Department's pathetic
anxiety for an accommodation on almost any terms, and Ambas
sador Bonsal's humble restraint, both fascinated and encouraged
him. In his early months of power, when Castro was feeling his
way and moving cautiously, American diplomacy had eagerly,
trustingly, accepted his assurances that his methods were evolu
tionary, not revolutionary. Once he had consolidated his author
ity and tested his capacity for manipulating the masses, he
could visualize himself as Supreme Chief of a history-making
continental revolution, unified against the United States as the
common enemy. And there was only one place for him to go
for support, and that was to the implacable foe of "American
imperialism," the Soviet Union. This vision and the process on
which it thrived might, it seems to me, have been predicted by
those aware of his character and inflated ambitions.
Castro's first all-out public attack on the United States came
on October 26, 1959, before a mammoth gathering. The event
was carefully staged for maximum propaganda effect. It is my
conviction that sometime prior to this date the green light had
been flashed by Moscow. He surely would not have cut Cuba's
umbilical tie with its great neighbor without advance negotiation
and undertakings by the U.S.S.R.
Criticism of the CIA for not having spotted Castro as a Com
munist before he took over comes, of course, from those who
are convinced he was a Communist at the time. This includes
most of the Cuban exiles and many Americans in high position.
Castro did not become a subject of real concern to the CIA
until he returned to Cuba in December 1956 and holed up in the
mountains; actually, not until after the Matthews articles in The
New York Times. Its agents then began checking with the
Catholic hierarchy in both Santiago and Havana. They con
sulted priests who had taught the boy in the Catholic schools he
had attended and they talked to those who had been his Univer
sity classmates in 1948. Of course, they infiltrated meetings of
the 26th of July Movement.
Unfortunately, as we can see it in the perspective of later
events, the CIA men who handled the bulk of the investigative
work on Castro were doctrinaire liberals. "Progressives" was
probably the word they preferred. Almost instinctively they
found themselves passionately anti-Batista and therefore, quite
illogically, strongly pro-Castro. I write this with profound re
gret since several were close personal friends, much closer to
Carmen and me than Ambassador Earl E. T. Smith and his
wife. The motives of these men are not open to question, but
their ideological commitments seriously hampered them in their
task. In discussing the phenomenon of contemporary liberal
ism, Prof. James Burnham, in his excellent book, Suicide of the
West, titled one of his chapters "Pas d'Ennemi a Gauche." For
broadminded progressives the preferred enemy, when there is a
choice, is by definition on the Right.
These able agents, with the most patriotic intentions, eagerly
seized upon reports that Castro had been a good Catholic in his
boyhood, had regularly attended church and made his confes
sions. He had once been an altar boy. They found members of
the Church hierarchy who ridiculed American concern over the
possibility that Castro might be a Communist or even favorable
to Communism. They attributed to Batista personal responsi
bility for police brutality against anti-government terrorists and
credited the most extreme accusations against him.
In Santiago American agents talked at length to Vilma Espin,
who had just come down from the rebel group in the hills. She
was an attractive girl who had studied at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology; she subsequently married RaUl Castro.
Speaking in perfect English, she pleaded articulately for Amer
ican sympathy. Having lived in the United States, she said, she
knew the freedom Americans enjoyed and that Fidel and RaUl
Castro only wanted for Cubans what the Americans had. She
denied vehemently that either of the brothers or "Che" Guevara
were Communists. The CIA agents were impressed. Yet a for
mer Executive Director of the CIA has written that Vilma
Espin was already known to be a communist when she was
studying in the United States! 5
When Dr. Manuel Urrutia, who later became Castro's puppet
President, sought a U.S. visa, he assured a small pro-Castro
group in the American Embassy that the Castro Movement was
anti-Communist, and they too were impressed. When CIA
agents investigated Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Rosario, Argen
tina, where he was born, his father spoke of the "Che" as a
dreamer and idealist who had fought against Peron and had en
gaged in anti-dictator activities in Colombia and Guatemala, but
claimed he was not a Communist.
Earl Smith did not share the views of the CIA agents in Cuba
in 1957-1958 and consequently came into sharp, and at times
bitter, conflict with them and other pro-Castro members of his
5 Lyman B. Kirkpatrick, Jr., The Real CIA (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1967), p. 169.
statl. He recommended that the CIA agents be replaced. In an
"Eyes Only" dispatch to Allen Dulles, Director of the CIA, he
urged that an agent be infiltrated into the Castro rebel group in
the mountains. 6
A lawyer's training and experience teaches him to withhold
judgment on an individual or organization until he has seen both
sides of the coin. The CIA never defends itself and I have there
fore been disinclined to condemn it. But surely it must be blamed
for having sent into the mountains an agent under cover of be
ing a journalist. This man remained with the group for two or
three weeks and upon returning to Washington reported that
Castro was an ego-maniac and emotionally unstable but not a
Communist. Castro, having had such astounding success with
Matthews, would naturally put his best foot forward in the
presence of American journalists. He has since said that he
wondered at times whether some of them were spies. My part
ner and I were in close touch with the CIA at the time. If I
had been asked, I could have furnished several Cuban boys
and girls who would have served as completely trustworthy
agents for this vital mission, to remain indefinitely with the
rebels, as Smith intended. Others in Havana could have done
the same.
There were men in the CIA, including the Chief of the Central
American Bureau, who shared Ambassador Smith's apprehen
sions. 7 The CIA knew there were Communists in the Castro
group. It knew of Castro's participation in the Bogotazo in 1948.
It knew he was radical, a terrorist and pathologically anti-Amer
ican. But it chose to emphasize that in its opinion he was not an
avowed Communist, and as late as November 5, 1959, more
than ten months after Castro had come to power, its Deputy
Director testified, "We believe Castro is not a member of the
Communist Party, and does not consider himself to be a Com
6 Earl E. T. Smith, The Fourth Floor (New York: Random House,

1962), p. 35.
'1 Ibid., p. 34.
munist." 8 The FBI, in contrast, had warned the State Depart
ment repeatedly since 1948 about Castro and his Communist
connections.
In retrospect, the record must show that Ambassador Smith's
conservative instincts led him correctly to evaluate the danger of
Castro. In substance, semantics and alibis aside, he was right;
the liberals around him were wrong.
In the closing days of 1958, very late, CIA Director Allen

Dulles finally told President Eisenhower (as I have noted above)
that "Communists and extreme radicals" appeared to have
penetrated the Castro movement. 9 "If Castro takes over," he
said, "they will probably participate in the government." At the
same time one of the President's advisers, possibly William D.
Pawley, urged that Eisenhower reverse American policy and
back Batista as the lesser of two evils. The President was an
noyed to have received the CIA report reversing earlier ap
praisals so belatedly, and he rejected the recommendation. lo
But whether the CIA was right or wrong in its belief that
Castro was not a Communist when he came to power, it seems to
me that the point was basically irrelevant. The CIA and the State
Department knew of Castro's radicalism, anti-Americanism and
Communist leanings as early as 1948, when, at the age of
twenty-one, he had agitated against "Yankee imperialism" in
Colombia. They knew that in those youthful years, as a student,
he had been a member of a terrorist group and had been arrested
in connection with one or more political murders. Surely there
was no need of "twenty-twenty hindsight," as Ambassador
BonsaI sarcastically refers to the vision of those who had the
prescience to warn against Castro. It was folly to clear the path
for Castro, in fact deliberately to lift him to power. There were
81bid., p. 35.
9 Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace
1956-1961 (New York: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1965), p. 521.
10 Ibid., p. 521.
alternatives short of supporting Batista. Liberal doctrine clings
to the conviction that the "non-Communist democratic Left"
offers the only solution for the political ills of Latin America.
The Washington policy-makers chose to run the risk of trading
the pro-American conservative Batista, or even anti-Batista con
servatives, for the anti-American radical Castro.
I was privileged to gain an insight into the thinking of one of

the master strategists of the Communist takeover of Cuba late
one night early in 1960. I believe that what I was told on that
occasion provides an explanation as to why Castro threw in his
lot with the Communists.
That night I had an interview with Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
He was the most powerful man in Cuba next to Castro, and I
had been searching for an excuse to see him. Late in the Batista
regime Lewis Lapham, President of the Grace Line, had asked
me to explore the possibility of making Havana a port of call
for the new Grace Liners which would soon be in service. The
problem was that stevedores in Havana were among the highest
paid port workers in the world. Through their strong union they
had been able to raise wages and stretch work to such an extent
that port labor costs in Havana had become prohibitive.
New labor practices-especially in connection with bulk
freight handling-were essential to attract foreign vessels. Ba
tista liked the project but had been reluctant to pressure the port
workers into making the needed concessions and it had been
dropped. Now it occurred to me that I could submit the same
program to Guevara, who had become President of the Cuban
National Bank in November 1959. The announced purpose of
my interview was a subterfuge, of course. I knew that he would
not approve such a plan, and I did not even check with the
Grace people to ascertain if they were still interested. What I
really wanted was an opportunity to probe Guevara's political
views.
Because of his vital role in Cuban affairs, a few words about
mE MYSTERY OF CASTRO'S COMMUNISM 251
Guevara's background are in order. He was thirty-two years old
at the time, and was born in Argentina's second-largest city,
Rosario, on June 14, 1928, the first of five children of a well-to
do civil engineer. He obtained a medical degree from the Uni
versity of Buenos Aires in 1953. The CIA, checking his record,
learned that he had engaged in street fights against the Per6n
regime. Leaving Argentina, he engaged in anti-dictator activities
in Colombia and Guatemala; in the latter country he held a
minor post with the land reform agency of the Communist-in
filtrated government of Arbenz Guzman, subsequently over
thrown in the CIA-inspired uprising of 1954.
While in Guatemala he lived with an attractive, almond-eyed
Peruvian girl named Hilda Gadea, an exiled radical. He subse
quently rejoined her in Mexico, where they were married in
May 1955. Hilda Gadea introduced Guevara to the Castro
brothers, who had recently arrived there. RaUl was best man at
the wedding. Soon they were joined by other Moncada sur
vivors and exiles, and by Alberto Bayo, a veteran of the Com
munist-supported Republicans in the Spanish Civil War of
1936-1939. Bayo, an Air Force Captain in the Loyalist army,
had commanded the ill-fated Majorcan expedition, which after
its defeat had been followed by a mopping-up operation of
furious cruelty, with several thousand people massacred by
Nationalist (Franco ) adherents. Subsequently, in the Tagus
River area on the mainland, his men conducted a series of suc
cessfulguerrilla actions against the Nationalist forces as they
gathered to march on Madrid.
Bayo is credited with teaching Guevara and the Castros the
rudiments of guerrilla warfare, an art at which Guevara even
tually became a master. The group rented a house in Mexico
and a ranch in the country, where Bayo conducted a training
center for the men under Castro's command. The Mexican
police, prodded by Batista's Cuban Embassy, arrested and held
the group for about a month, then released them. The police
were closing in again in late November 1956, when they set
forth to "invade" Cuba in the leaky old Granma. Bayo, who
died in Cuba in 1967, rated Guevara first among the men he
trained.
In Cuba Guevara became the principal strategist of the rebel
force. He had the capacity to formulate programs that included
details for which Castro had no patience. When Castro digressed
in vague theories, it was Guevara who argued forcefully in favor
of his carefully planned strategy. During this period he wrote an
analysis of guerrilla tactics which was published in 1959 and
attained world-wide distribution.
During August and September 1958, Guevara led a bedrag
gled, hungry, barefooted column of about three hundred into
central Las Villas Province. Santa Clara, the provincial capital
with the largest fortress in Central Cuba, surrendered to his
forces on January 1, 1959, after receiving word that Batista
had fled. This marked the only military victory of any substance
obtained by the Castroites during the revolution. Fourteen days
earlier the U.S. State Department had told Batista to leave Cuba
and his flight found the rebels unprepared to take over.
Hilda had followed Guevara to Cuba with their daughter, but
she lost her husband to the revolution; the marriage broke up.
She was given a job with Prensa Latina, Castro's news agency,
which began operations in May 1959, and which, incidentally.
was organized by an Argentinian friend of Guevara who had
worked for Juan Peron's propaganda agency. Guevara's second
wife, Aleida March, who had been a school teacher, worked as
his secretary. Today she remains in Cuba with her daughter, on
a government pension.
According to Guevara's book on guerrilla warfare, indoctrina
tion is the most important element in training new recruits, and
it followed that the first organized Communist influence which
became apparent in Cuba in 1959 was in the rebel army and
in the civilian militia organized by Guevara. He became head of
the Department of Instruction of the Armed Forces Ministry,
and soon Communists were lecturing in the army camps. It was·
this sort of indoctrination, in which they saw indubitable proof
of the coming Communist domination, that Major Diaz Lanz
and Major Hubert Matos opposed and tried in vain to stop.
Much of what I have related here was known to well-informed
Cubans by 1960. Everyone looked upon Guevara as a Com
munist. In fact, when he was appointed president of the Cuban
National Bank, a political anecdote which quickly made the
rounds had it that at a cabinet meeting Castro had asked,
"Which one of you is an economista?" Guevara held up his
hand. "All right," said Castro, "you are the president of the
National Bank." After the meeting Guevara asked Castro why
he have given him the appointment. "Didn't you tell me you
were an economista?" asked Castro. "Oh," said Guevara, "I
thought you said 'Comunista'!"
Guevara was no economist, but Castro trusted him and he
became the chief economist figure of the regime. All of his
policies were radical in the extreme. In June 1959 he went on a
long trip to the Middle and Far East, and on his return he was
made Director of the Department of Industrialization within the
National Agrarian Reform Institute. Eventually economic de
cisions would be made by a Central Planning Council, of which
Guevara was the most influential member. And he also became
the chief architect of the various trade agreements with the
Soviet Union and its satellites.
It was with considerable interest, therefore, that I received
word that Guevara had given me an appointment. He was a
tremendous worker, customarily at his job from about 3 P.M.
to 6 A.M., and my interview was scheduled for late at night. I
had talked to him briefly on other occasions but never alone.
However, I was prepared for the meeting because of dealings I
had had previously with Cuban Communist leaders, especially in
1946-1947, when they held Cabinet and Congressional posts
and for a time controlled the labor movement. I had found
them to be men of financial integrity, highly intelligent, and
fanatically devoted to their Marxist beliefs. I was well aware
%54 DAGGER IN THE HEART
that it would be a futile exercise to adopt a condescending at
titude with anyone of Guevara's intellectual stature, and that
any attempt at mock revolutionism would evoke only ridicule
and contempt.
Guevara's appearance was fascinating. His alert brown eyes
and large mustache, framed by a beard and abundant, curly
hair, lent an Asiatic cast to his features and made him seem
considerahly older than his thirty-two years. In the mountains
he had permitted his hair to grow to shoulder length but later
it had been cut. He wore olive-green fatigues and black boots;
his black beret with the major's star hung on a nearby chair.
Atop his papers on the desk was his pistol. Although lacking the
heartiness that Castro displays, he received me courteously.
As I expected, the Grace Line project was quickly brushed
aside. "We are not interested in steamship services with the
United States," he said. "We will have other ocean services and
American vessels would have nothing to transport." I asked
why this should be so. "Because dependence on the American
market has enslaved us economically," he replied. But would
Cuba not be enslaving herself by depending on the Soviet
Union? And what about the preferentially higher prices paid by
Americans for Cuban sugar? The Soviets liberate, he said, they
do not enslave. The higher sugar prices in the American market,
limited by a unilaterally imposed quota, were a fiction, he
argued. Once the American quota is eliminated, "and the
sooner, the better," Cuba would be master of the world market,
able to dictate prices.
An attendant brought black coffee in small cups half filled
with sugar, and Guevara offered me an excellent cigar, lighting
his own.
"Tell me," he said, "you are the lawyer of the American
Embassy, are you not?" No, we were not the Embassy lawyers,
but we had done work for departments and agencies of the
U.S. Government. "A technical distinction," he commented. "It
is the same thing." Then, "Why don't you be smart, Lazo? We·
THE MYSTERY OF CASTRO'S COMMUNISM %55
are the wave of the future. Your imperialist clients promise
heaven up there," pointing, "but we offer it here, on earth."
I said I did not understand how the word "imperialism" could
be applied to the United States, which had never had colonies.
I had always associated the label with the great empires of the
past, the British, French, Belgian, etc. No, he said, the United
States engages in the most ruthless form of imperialism, which
is the economic exploitation of the underdeveloped countries, as
had happened in Cuba. The United States, a manufacturing
country, did not want the developing countries to produce any
thing other than the raw materials it needed in order to enrich
itself at their expense. "Capitalists use the labor of others ex
clusively for their own benefit," he said. "That is the essence of
capitalism. "
Guevara then made a remark that he was to repeat to others
later: "The Castro regime and Yankee imperialism are engaged
in a death struggle, and we both know that one of the two must
die in this fight."
But the United States is the most powerful country in the
world and it does not intend to die, I remarked.
"Yes, my friend," he retorted, "the Americans have guns but
they will not use them, even against us, so it is the same as if
they had none." He paused for a moment, then summed up:
"The fact is, the United States is weak and disoriented."
This conversation, like others, was reported to the Embassy.
There was no noticeable effect, not to mention an expression of
thanks. The Blind Colossus that is the United States continued
to act "weak and disoriented," even when it finally became
aware that in Cuba it was squarely up against international
Communism.
Guevara's end came eight years later in Bolivia while he was

attempting to carry out his and Castro's program of "two ...
three ... many Vietnams." It is understandable that the project
had been launched with confidence, since they were probably
%56 DAGGER IN THE HEART
under the illusion that they had defeated Batista militarily, and
imagined that the Bolivian experience would be similar. But
there were differences, some decisive. The Bolivian Indian peas
an~s, traditionally distrustful of the white man, and especially
of bearded ones, proved to be even more hostile than the Cuban
montunos. In Bolivia there was no Herbert Matthews, and,
most important of all, the United States helped the Bolivian
regular army instead of destroying its morale. In Bolivia the
American military were permitted to give assistance in training
and weaponry, imbuing the Bolivian army with the conviction
that it could run down the rebels. The relationship between the
Pentagon and the Latin American military establishments has
fortunately always been cordial, one of genuine mutual respect.
It has been so intimate, in fact, that Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
who invariably speaks scornfully of the military and is slick with
words, refers to it as an "incestuous" relationship.ll In hunting
down Guevara, one of America's formidable enemies, it paid
off.
On October 8, 1967, after a skirmish with government troops,
Guevara was shot through both legs and trapped. When cap
tured he identified himself. "I am 'Che' Guevara," he said.
"Don't kill me; I am worth more to you alive than dead." The
non-commissioned officer in charge of the army detail sent a
message to headquarters in La Paz. "Tenemos a papa," it said,
"que hacemos?" The broad equivalent: "We have captured the
big fish, what are your orders?"
At about 10 A.M. the next morning the answer came from
President Rene Barrientos: "Liquidate him." Before drawing
lots to see who would kill Guevara, most of the soldiers had
themselves photographed with him. Not until about 2 P.M.,
when one of the men, carrying an M-2, entered the schoolroom
where Guevara was being held, did he realize he was about to
die. As the soldier pointed the weapon Guevara raised his

TIlE MYSTERY OF CASTRO'S COMMUNISM 257
hands to his mouth in terror, biting down on his fingers in an
effort to stifle a scream. A hail of bullets struck him and his
body fell against the wall and slumped down. The eyes stared
from the dirty bearded face. His body was either cremated or
buried in an unmarked grave. From his group only five men
escaped into Chile and then back to Cuba. At least ten Cuban
Communist guerrillas, including two members of the Central
Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, had been killed.
In life Guevara had always been motivated by hatred for the
United States. He was a monster of cruelty, utterly ruthless and
devoid of any trace of compassion. He always coldly rejected
our appeals for the innocent victims of the infamous revolution
ary "courts." While in the Sierra Maestra he reveled in presiding
over the "trial" and execution of simple, illiterate peasants for
being insubordinate, or those suspected of being "defeatists"
or informers. Desertions, which were continual, included one of
the Granma veterans. 12 Desertion was punishable by death upon
capture. 13 Youths unable to withstand the rigors of guerrilla life
were ordered shot because there were no prison facilities. Of the
little band of Castro followers that was arrested by the Mexican
police and held for a few weeks before "invading" Cuba in late
1956, Guevara later wrote, "They [the police] committed the
error . . . of not killing him [Castro] after making him
prisoner." 14
But according to Communist standards, Ernesto Guevara de
la Serna was a man of excellence. In his eulogy on October 18,
1967, Castro called him "a man of spotless conduct . . . a
morally superior man . . . of exquisite human sensitivity . . .
without a stain." 15 He had been shamelessly murdered, said
Castro, by "thugs, oligarchs and mercenaries" who seemed not
to be aware of "the repUlsiveness of the procedure." Castro criti
12 Emesto "Chen Guevara, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary

War (New York: Monthly Review Press, Inc., 1968), pp. 75, 126.
IS/bid., p. 108.
14 Ibid., p. 38.
15 Ibid., pp. 23, 25.
cized Guevara's "disdain for danger." There was no doubt about
his bravery. The Castro brothers had repeatedly begged him not
to run unnecessary risks, as they did not.
Castro had played for high stakes in Bolivia, but it proved
to be no Cuba, and no Vietnam. Guevara's death was a shatter
ing blow to the Latin America revolutionary movement.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Invasion as Planned
The American military has no peer in the techniques of amphibi

ous landings on a hostile shore. Tens of thousands of American
men know about such things, having taken part in the assaults
at the Omaha and Utah beaches in Normandy, at Anzio in Italy,
and at Iwo Jima, Saipan, Inchon, and elsewhere. Carefully
planned and brilliantly executed, these landings gave the Ameri
can forces victory.
This experience and expertise amounted to a guarantee of
swift success in the operation on the shore of Cuba-no less
carefully planned.
The geographical setting of the Bay of Pigs invasion is more
accurately described as Gir6n (or Playa Gir6n, as the Cubans
refer to it) since the main body of assault troops disembarked
near Gir6n, a small town of two hundred houses, which had the
only good airport in the general area. But whatever name is
used for the bay and its environs, the invasion had a catastrophic
ending that may well mark one of the turning points in contem
porary history.
Had the invasion been allowed to succeed, the first Commu
nist beachhead in the Western Hemisphere would have been
liquidated and nine-tenths of the Communist pressure on the
other nations of Central and South America would have been
removed. There would have been no Missile Crisis eighteen
months later. As it turned out, the Soviet Union ended up with
a sanctuary in the Carribean that has since been converted
26' DAGGER IN THE BEART
into an immensely formidable fortress, honeycombed with un
derground military installations of unknown power. In the face
of this, even the American naval base at Guantanamo is prob
ably useless--neutralized. Soviet weaponry installed in the area
surrounding Guantanamo would very likely compel the United
States to evacuate the base in a military confrontation between
the nuclear giants.
The pernicious consequences of the defeat thus can hardly
be overstated. The breathtaking arrogance of the Soviets in
converting Cuba into a base for the subversion of Latin America
has already stimulated guerrilla warfare in several countries.
This in tum has weakened those countries economically, be
cause foreign capital has been withheld or withdrawn and local
capital has fled the area. It has spread a pall of fear and uncer
tainty over the rest of the hemisphere. The impact has been
especially great because Cuba was always regarded as the
prime example of what happens to a nation that stands close
to the United States-geographically, socially, and economically.
Finally there is the moral aspect of the calamity, to which
the great majority of Americans are certainly not indifferent.
As a result of the Giron fiasco, eight million citizens of a neigh
boring country traditionally more friendly to the United States
than any other in the world have been enslaved by Communism.
Its children have been indoctrinated by Marxist teachers for
more than ten years. It was Lenin who once repeated this his
torical truism: "Give me the children and the seeds I sow will
never be uprooted." The price of Giron has been high indeed.
Apologists for the Kennedy administration have, of course,
sought to play down the political and human costs of the dis
aster. They have implied, and in some cases said, that Giron
was a minor episode. One has written that in later months
President Kennedy became grateful that he had learned so
much "at so relatively small and temporary a cost." 1 The Presi
1 Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965),

p.308.
THE INVASION AS PLANNED 261
dent's father told his son that the Bay of Pigs "was not a mis
fortune but a benefit." 2 Some Kennedy apologists have pointed
to the fact that the number of men involved and the casualties
were small. This reasoning is fallacious. The pivotal significance
of a military engagement cannot be measured by the numbers
involved or the casualties sustained. At Yorktown, for example,
only 262 men were killed or wounded, 186 French and 76
Americans, yet it proved to be a momentous event in the history
of North America.
Why and how did this tragic misadventure occur? The con
fusions which still prevail derive in large part from accounts
in their respective books by two men closely identified with
the Kennedy administration: Theodore C. Sorensen and Arthur
M. Schlesinger, Jr., the first a special adviser to the President
in 1961, the second a special assistant.
Both argue that the invasion never had a realistic chance to
succeed. They blame the debacle on the Central Intelligence
Agency, which developed the original plan, and the 10int Chiefs
of Staff, who approved it. They insist, among other things, that
the cancellation of a scheduled air strike on the morning of
the invasion had little to do with the failure.
Who are these men? The question is a fair one, not only
because of their writings on the Bay of Pigs but because one
of them, Schlesinger, was an active and voluble member of the
group of civilian advisers which emasculated the military plans.
Neither of these men has any special knowledge of the military
art; both are vociferous liberals; their accounts, presented more
than three years after the event, are flatly contrary to the facts
on vital points. Because of Schlesinger's involvement in the
judgments that brought defeat, his interpretation is in the nature
of the case subjective and self-justifying, if only subconsciously.
Sorensen's liberalism might be called hereditary and environ
2 ArthUr M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (Boston: Houghton

MifIlin Company. 1965), p. 297.
16% DAGGER IN THE' HEART
mental. His father had sailed for Europe on Henry Ford's
"Peace Ship" and his mother was accused of pacifism and radi
calism during World War I. Young Ted Sorensen registered
with his Nebraska draft board as a conscientious objector. He
once referred to himself as a "rationally committed liberal,"
more dedicated and effective than the liberal who is emotionally
committed.
Schlesinger, who had once been a speech writer for Adlai
Stevenson and remained one of his most zealous partisans, dur
ing the Kennedy Administration became the historian-in-resi
dence at the White House, where he had few specific assign
ments. He was a founder and vice-chairman of the ultra-liberal
ADA (Americans for Democratic Action). Kennedy delayed
announcement of his appointment until Chester Bowles had
been confirmed as Under Secretary of State. "I don't want the
Senate to think that I am bringing down the whole ADA," he
said. s
As a younger man, Schlesinger made little attempt to conceal
his opinionated arrogance. Those of whom he disapproved were
"idiots," and he publicly labeled them as such. His White House
associate, McGeorge Bundy, once said of him, "He's a terribly
partisan man, to a degree rarely found in academic life." 4 The
conservative New York Daily News alluded to the built-in
Schlesinger bias in less elegant English: "Junior is an egghead
to end all eggheads, so we shudder to think what he may sneak
into Kennedy's speeches...."
Schlesinger's version of the Giron tragedy offers an interesting
study of the liberal mind at work. Defeats are rationalized into
victories. Professional military men, whose meticulously drawn
plans were brushed aside on the recommendation of the Presi
dent's coterie of civilian amateurs, are treated with scorn; the
"court historian" refers sarcastically to their uniform, braid,
and service ribbons, as if these were somehow dishonorable.
S Schlesinger, p. 162.
4Victor Lasky, J.F.K., The Man and the Myth (New York: Arlington
House, Inc., 1966), p. 303.
He once went so far as to say that the United States owed a
debt of gratitude to Castro because the bearded dictator had
alerted Americans to the dangers of Communism in this hemi
sphere. 5 Through the magic of such ideological logic, the brutal
reality that the Communists hold a beachhead within America's
strategic defense periphery is transmuted into a blessing!
Schlesinger's account of the Giron disaster shows little of
the intellectual objectivity we have a right to expect from an
able historian. The final sentence in his Bay of Pigs chapter
reads: "But no one can doubt that failure in Cuba in 1961
contributed to success in Cuba in 1962." Incredibly, it does not
occur to him that if the invasion of Cuba in 1961 had been per
mitted to succeed, there would have been no Missile Crisis in
1962.
I have discussed these men at some length because, in the
absence of the official government report on the Bay of Pigs,
which has not been relea.ied as of this writing, their accounts
of the debacle have been accepted throughout the world as
authentic. The impact of these accounts is evident in hundreds
of articles that have been written on the subject.
What are the facts?

The struggle which led to the failure was waged not in Giron
but in Washington. The military action on the Cuban coast
could have been shortened or prolonged for a few hours by
fortuitous circumstances, but it was doomed to defeat by Wash
ington decisions before the first assault troops had disembarked.
In essence the conflict was between moderate conservatives
on the one hand, represented by the CIA and the Joint Chiefs,
and the President's civilian advisers on the other-liberals all.
Although the fate of Cuba was at stake, no Cuban participated
in this critical struggle. Between the contending elements, mak
ing the decisions, was the new and youthful President, John F.
5Lasky, p. S77.
Kennedy, who has never been accused of lacking either per
sonal courage or intelligence.
To understand how a sound military operation was emascu
lated by political decisions it is necessary, of course, to have an
understanding of the invasion plan as originally conceived.
The decision to help anti-Castro Cubans liberate their home

land was made by President Dwight D. Eisenhower early in
1960. The task was assigned to the CIA. Any plan developed
would have to be approved by the President.
By the time of the November 1960 presidential elections a
number of tentative plans were under consideration by the CIA,
but the Joint Chiefs of Staff as yet had no knowledge of any of
them. In fact, no plan was submitted to the Joint Chiefs before
January 1961, at least two months after the election. President
Eisenhower has said that no tactical or operational plan was
even discussed as of the day he turned the Presidency over to
Kennedy.
"At no time did I put before anybody anything that could
be called a plan," said the former President. "There was no
mandate, no commitment by me or anyone in my administra
tion," so that Kennedy could not have felt "he was frozen into
any position by me." II Among Eisenhower's last words to his
successor before the ceremonial drive to the inauguration were,
{'You people will have to decide what to do about Cuba." And
the two men did not speak with each other again for three
months, until after the disaster. In spite of this, Schlesinger was
later to write, "the Republicans, of course, were a little inhibited
by their own role in conceiving the operation...."7
Long before the inauguration, four hundred to six hundred
.Cuban Freedom Fighters were receiving military training in
Guatemala, Panama, Florida, Louisiana, and at Fort Meade,
twenty miles north of Washington, although the State Depart-
II Earl Mazo, "Ike Speaks Out: Bay of Pigs Was All JFK's," Newsday,
September 10, 1965, p. 51.
7 Schlesinger, p. 288.
ment wanted all the training to be done outside of the United
States. It did not want Cubans trained even at the Jungle War
fare School in Panama. Air drops to the anti-Castro fighters
in Cuba's Escambray Mountains were being attempted by Cu
ban pilots who had been trained by American instructors in
planes provided by the U.S. Government.
The morale of the Freedom Fighters was extremely· high.
Their American instructors exuded confidence, based on the
conviction that any enterprise approved by President Eisen
hower, and carried out as approved, would not be allowed to
fail, even if final victory required the overt support of American
troops, ships, and planes. Their confidence at this stage was not
misplaced. Eisenhower has said that his country's prestige and
power should never be committed unless its Chief Executive
was determined to win. "There is no alternative," he declared.
"Force is a naked, brutal thing in this world . . . . If you are
going to use it, you have got to be prepared to go all the
way. . . . If our hand had been discovered, then it was more
important than ever that we win." 8
This was the situation that confronted President John F.
Kennedy when he entered the White House in January 1961.
The invasion site in the first plan submitted to President
Kennedy in February 1961 was not Gir6n but Trinidad, a city
of twenty thousand inhabitants lying almost one hundred miles
farther east on the south coast of Cuba, in the foothills of the
Escambray Mountains. Trinidad was chosen because it offered
a number of substantial advantages. It was one hundred miles
farther from Havana, where Castro's troops and armor were
known to be concentrated. The local population was known
to be strongly anti-Castro. It had a suitable airfield. Most im
portant of all, the site provided an alternative if things went
wrong-the invaders could escape into the nearby mountains
and conduct prolonged guerrilla operations. The Trinidad in
vasion site was selected by the CIA and the Joint Chiefs con
curred in the selection. There was no mention of any other site.
The traditional command structure of the United States has
been one under which the Commander in Chief sets the primary
objectives of combat and leaves to professionals the conduct of
operations. In this case, however, Kennedy kept a tight strategic
control over the invasion plan. He began to overrule the recom·
mendations of the Joint Chiefs, of whom Eisenhower has said:
"These men over decades of devoted service have shown their
capabilities, their sense of logic, their understanding of the
problems involved in this kind of venture. There is no more
expert group in their profession than these men...." 9 But the
plans of these men were watered down and then discarded piece
meal. The first of several political decisions which had this
effect was made when Kennedy accepted the idea that an am
phibious landing at Trinidad would be "too spectacular." He
wanted a "quiet landing," and preferably at night. Io
The reason that impelled the President to make this decision
was that U.S. participation in the operation was supposed to be
secret, undercover. A landing which had all the earmarks of an
invasion mounted by the United States, at a coastal town as
large as Trinidad, he was persuaded, would give the whole
thing away. He was deeply concerned about world opinion.
Strictly speaking, Trinidad is not a coastal town. Its port of
entry, Casilda, On the Caribbean, lies three miles to the south.
Casilda is a seaside resort with a population of about fifteen
hundred. It has a good beach, far superior to anything adjacent
to Giron, and a river that empties into the bay is navigable for
small boats almost as far as Trinidad. It offered a completely
ideal landing site for the invaders.
Liberal State Department officials have a pathological dread
of "world opinion." They do not realize that adverse world
opinion subsides quickly in the face of accomplishment; that
history never argues long with success but rarely forgives fail
9lbid., p. 50.

ures. The Soviets and the Chinese Communists are entirely
indifferent to world opinion. They never bow to adverse pub
licity or permit it to deter them from policies they consider
desirable to themselves. America's staunchest allies are invari
ably more appalled by a display of weakness resulting in failure.
Lyndon Johnson once expressed this idea when he was being
warned at a Vietnam briefing by State Department officials that
strong military action being contemplated might injure the image
of the United States. "You guys are so busy saving my face
you are going to lose me my pants!" he said. ll William F. Buck
ley, Jr., has expressed the same idea: "I think world opinion
is just a paper tiger. When Johnson landed Marines in Santo
Domingo everyone expected a lot of shouting and not very
much really happened." 12 As Vice President, incidentally, John
son, although older and wiser than the liberal Frontiersmen
who breathlessly invaded Washington in 1961, was seldom con
sulted or listened to at the time.
The scornful expression "paper tiger" was applied by Chinese
Communists to the Franco-American defeat in the Indo-China
War and to the stalemate in Korea. In the light of such Western
defeats, Peking had no trouble selling Asians the idea that the
United States was a "paper tiger," strong in promises, weak in
action. Can there be any doubt that the Bay of Pigs calamity, in
the measure that it fortified the notion of American inability
to use its power without paralyzing inhibitions about world
opinion, encouraged the Communist aggressions in Southeast
Asia?
But even conceding some importance to world opinion, the
fact is that in 1961 U.S. involvement in the invasion project
was no secret to anyone, as it never could have been in a free
society. In October 1960, six months before the invasion, the
Hispanic-American Report, a journal published at Stanford
University, reported that Cuban Freedom Fighters were being
11 Time Essay on World Opinion, May 28, 1965. p. 31.
12 Life, September 17, 1965.

trained at camps in Guatemala. Similar articles had appeared
in La Bora, a Guatemalan paper, and in November in The
Nation. On December 22, 1960, the Los Angeles Mirror in
formed its readers of the Guatemalan activities. A representa
tive of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch visited Guatemala and con
firmed the existence of the camps.
Finally, on January to, 1961, three months before the in
vasion, The New York Times published a three-column front
page article under the headline u.s. HELPS TRAIN AN ANTI
CASTRO FORCE AT SECRET GUATEMALAN AIR-GROUND BASE.
This was illustrated with a map, also on the front page, showing
the exact location of the training base. The long article
stated that the United States was "assisting the training effort
not only with personnel but with materiel and the construction
of ground and air facilities." Immediately following was an
item reporting that Foreign Minister Raul Roa of Cuba had
accused the United States of training "mercenaries" in Guate
mala and of hastily conditioning an airport there with aggressive
intentions against Cuba. Four days previously, on January 6,
Time magazine reported that the CIA was giving financial aid
estimated as high as $500,000 monthly to Cuban underground
groups.
Many other reports came out of Miami, confirming the in
vasion buildup. In March 1961, Lyman Kirkpatrick, Executive
Director of the CIA, spoke to the Commonwealth Club in San
Francisco. Professor Ronald Hilton of Stanford University
asked him what he thought of the discovery of the CIA camps
in Guatemala. Kirkpatrick answered that he thought it was a
bad thing whenever covert CIA activity was discovered, and
the press on the West Coast played up what Professor Hilton
took to be an acknowledgment that there were CIA camps.
These stories revealed no secrets to Castro. It was all com
mon knowledge. The pretense of secrecy was an exercise in
futility. Pierre Salinger, the White House press representative,
says that eight days before the invasion the only information
Castro did not have was the exact time and place of the in
THE INVASION AS PLANNED 26'
vasion. President Kennedy told Salinger, "I can't believe what
I am reading! Castro doesn't need agents over here. All he has
to do is read our papers. It's all laid out for him." 13 In the
weeks before the invasion hardly a day passed without a dis
patch in some newspaper or a broadcast over some radio or TV
station confirming the invasion prospects. One might therefore
conclude that it had become evident, as long as three months
before the invasion, that the fear of impairing the U.S. image
was no longer a valid consideration. Nevertheless, as will be
seen, it continued to be the main argument that influenced the
decisions that foredoomed the invasion.
When the President ordered the CIA to find a less con
spicuous landing site than Trinidad (in fact, Casilda), the CIA
and the Joint Chiefs, after considering a number of alternatives,
chose Gir6n, near the Bay of Pigs. There were excellent reasons
for Gir6n as a second choice. The latest American reconnais
sance plane photos showed that there was no concentration of
Castro troops in the vicinity ,as had also been the case in Trini
dad. The air strip at Gir6n was suitable for B-26 operations.
The military men, however, saw that Gir6n had one big disad
vantage. The area was not suited to prolonged guerrilla warfare
-if things went wrong there would be no alternative to fall back
on. Nevertheless, the fact that the CIA and the Joint Chiefs,
though they still preferred Casilda, were willing to accept Gir6n
shows that they believed the operation as then planned was very
likely to succeed.
The essential element of the invasion plan--called Operation
Pluto--was the use of air power. This central fact must be kept
well in mind. Castro's small air force of less than thirty operable
aircraft was to be destroyed on the ground with a minimum of
three air strikes-not two, as reported by Sorensen and Schle
singer-by the Free Cuban Air Squadron based at Puerto Ca
bezas, Nicaragua. There were to be two strikes prior to the
18 Pierre Salinger. With Kennedy (New York: Doubleday & Company.

Inc.• 1966), p. 146.
invasion, with the full squadron of sixteen attacking planes
participating, and a third strike to coincide with the landings
in Cuba.
The number and timing of the air strikes in the original plan
are of the utmost significance in understanding how it was emas
culated in the actual operation. The man in charge of the inva
sion at the CIA, Richard M. Bissell, Jr., has confirmed to me
that the plan called for "three air strikes all at full strength."
Had the second strike been carried out, he emphasized, it would
have caught Castro's Air Force not "in hiding" but "concen
trated at the one base known to us." General Cabell, then work
ing with Bissell, informed me that in addition to the three
scheduled massive blows there were to be as many more indi
vidual sorties as needed to destroy every Castro plane on the
ground. Former Vice President Richard Nixon, whose sources
of information were certainly unique, has consistently referred
to three planned air strikes in speaking or writing about the
invasion.14 Those who persist in referring to two strikes are,
knowingly or in honest error, distorting the character of the
original plans.
Plainly then, there were to be at least 48 sorties from Nica
ragua, and if these were not sufficient to destroy every Castro
plane on the ground before the invasion force hit the beaches,
additional runs were to be made against the airports. The Amer
icans would replace any planes lost during these strikes. After
every Castro plane had been destrqyed, and the assault troops
had seized the Giron airfield at the beachhead, the Free Cuban
Air Squadron would use it as its base of operations. This would
eliminate the 1,480-mile flight from Nicaragua to Cuba and
back, which took seven hours and allowed the bombers little
more than 30 minutes over the target. Thenceforth, with com
plete control of the air over the entire island, the bombing
schedule of the liberating planes, as will be explained, could be
14 Richard M. Nixon, "Cuba, Castro and John F. Kennedy," Reader's

Digest, November 1962, p. 290.
mE INVABION AS PLANNED 271
expected to bring about Castro's collapse in a very few days.
The first air strike, scheduled for Saturday morning, April
15, had as its sole objective the destruction of as many of
Castro's aircraft on the ground as possible. The second strike,
scheduled for Sunday morning, April 16, was intended to de
stroy any remaining aircraft on the ground and to bomb known
anti-aircraft and other military installations.
Air strike No.3, scheduled for Monday, April 17, was to
provide final assurance that every Castro plane had been de
stroyed. As mentioned, additional and repeated strikes would
provide extra assurance that the basic and indispensable objec
tive had been accomplished. The third strike would have had
the supplementary objective of hitting tank, mobile-gun, and
truck concentrations and sinking a gunboat anchored near Cien
fuegos. The planes were then to fly support missions over the
beachhead, preparatory to using the Gir6n airport as the base of
squadron operations.
Incredibly and in the end fatally, the minimum forty-eight
sorties out of Nicaragua were eventually reduced to eight, by
orders from the White House.
Repeatedly, while in training, Cuban airmen asked their U.S.
superiors whether the stripped planes, defenseless from the
rear, would not be easy prey for Castro's jets. The answer from
the American officer in command was plain and reassuring:
"Don't worry about Castro's jet fighters-they won't get into
the air." He was echoing the Washington strategists who
counted on the complete destruction of the Communist air force
on the ground. Operation Pluto, it cannot be too often empha
sized, was to be essentially an air operation.
The Free Cuban Air Squadron consisted of sixteen B-26 me

dium bombers, four 4-engine C-54's, and five twin-engine
C-46's (the two latter types were unarmed transports to carry
paratroopers and supplies). The planes were of World War II
and Korean War vintage; the B-26's had been stripped of tail
guns to enable them to carry needed fuel for the long flight from
Nicaragua to Cuba and back. U.S. military advisers considered
them entirely adequate to the air requirements of Operation
Pluto.
The invasion force of which the Air Squadron was a part was
known as Brigade 2506 and was composed of 1,443 men. It
had been trained at two sites on the south coast of Guatemala
by U.S. Army specialists who were veterans of the Korean War
and World War II. The name "La Brigada 2506" was chosen
by the Cubans because 2506 was the serial number of the first
Cuban to die in preparing for the invasion. He was a popular,
idealistic young student named Carlos Rafael Santana, who
fell into a ravine while on a physical training mission. His death
on September 7, 1960, saddened and unified the men in train
ing.
Brigade 2506 was an authentic cross-section of Cuba. It was
made up of farmers, fishermen, lawyers, doctors, and bankers.
Many of the men were married and had children, and there
were several father-and-son pairs. The largest group was com
'posed of students but there were teachers, engineers, mechanics,
cattlemen, and clerks. Although the large majority were Catho
lics, there were also Protestants and some Jews. In addition to
50 full-blooded Negroes, others had some Negro blood. There
were about 140 professional soldiers, but most of the men had
had no previous military training. Thus the Brigade was com
posed of men of varying backgrounds, socially, intellectually
and politically, with the result that there was some division
among them. What united them was their democratic ideals and
sense of duty, and their unanimous conviction that the invasion
would be successful.
The tragic aspect of "La Brigada," as things turned out, was
that its members had a blind faith in the United States. They
were certain, to a man, that their American friends would never
let them down. In many ways these men were closer to the
United States than to any country of Latin America. Their
American instructors, to whom the Cubans became deeply at
tached, were astonished at the fervor which they displayed in
THE INVASION AS PLANNED l73
the training program, hanging on every spoken word and
eagerly grasping every opportunity to improve their military
skills.
In back of everything was their certainty that they were deal
ing with representatives of the world's greatest and most power
ful nation, which had always been their friend. Many spoke
English and had gone to school in the United States; they knew
its history and its record of victory in war. Not one of them
conceived the possibility of defeat. And they knew the history
of their own country, which taught that small groups of men
had often triumphed over large forces. Batista had taken over
their government in 1952 with only twenty-five men; Castro
himself had started guerrilla activities with only twelve.
Inevitably there were a few trouble-makers. They had confi
dence in their American instructors but provoked rivalries in
the Brigade. During the training period these troublesome Cu
bans, a total of twelve, were removed from the Brigade and
imprisoned by the Americans.
The best estimate of the Brigade was contained in a dispatch
from a veteran Marine colonel who had been sent to Guate
mala as a special emissary of the President to make a final in
spection. It read, in part, as follows:
My observations have increased my confidence in the

ability of this force to accomplish not only initial combat
missions but also the ultimate objective, the overthrow of
Castro. The Brigade and battalion commanders now know
all details of the plan and are enthusiastic. These officers
are young, vigorous, intelligent, and motivated with a fanati
cal urge to begin battle. . . . They say they know their
people and believe after they have inflicted one serious
defeat upon the opposition forces, the latter will melt away
from Castro. . . . I share their confidence.
The Brigade is . . . more heavily armed and better
equipped in some respects than U.S. infantry units. The
men have received ... more firing experience than U.S.
troops would normally receive. I was impressed with the
serious attitude of the men. . . . The embarkation was
carried out with remarkable smoothness. The Brigade now
numbers 1,400; a truly formidable force.
I have also observed the [Brigade] Cuban Air Force
carefully. The aircraft are kept with pride and some of the
crew are so eager they have already armed their aircraft.
[Name deleted] . . . informed me today that he considers
the B-26 Squadron equal to the best U.S. Air Force Squad
ron. The Brigade officers . . . ask only for continued de
livery of supplies (emphasis added).
This Cuban Air Force is well trained, armed to the
teeth, and ready. 15
When President Kennedy ordered the Joint Chiefs to find a

less spectacular landing site than Casilda, Trinidad's port of
entry, they of course complied, but only after emphasizing their
preference for Casilda and Trinidad in writing to the President,
as well as personally whenever the matter was discussed. Once
Kennedy had decided against the Casilda-Trinidad operation,
however, attention was concentrated on Playa Giron. This was
the beginning of a progressive watering-down process.
To the north of the newly selected landing site lies the great
Ci6naga de Zapata swamp, extending approximately sixty-five
miles from east to west and twenty miles from north to south.
Along the shore, however, the soil is hard and rocky, and for
about three miles inland the land is smooth and firm. Only
three highways, built across the swamp, connect the shoreline
with the interior of the island. The enormous swamp of black
muck is infested with crocodiles, mosquitoes, and huge black
flies.
The invasion plan called for dropping paratroopers along
each of the three roads, to cut off any early access to the beach
head. Assault troops were to disembark at three points along
forty miles of shoreline, the main force at Playa Giron and
15 From the magazine article "We Who Tried," Life, May 10, 1963,
p.34.
other detachments twenty miles to the northwest and twenty
miles to the east. (As things turned out, the invaders did, for
a brief time, occupy an area forty miles in width and almost
twenty miles inland.) The first landing party would clear the
Gir6n airport runway, while freighters in the invasion tleet
unloaded gasoline, bombs, ammunition, and supplies, and put
ashore a group of highly trained aircraft mechanics.
With control of the air and operating out of Gir6n, the Bri
gade Air Squadron could easily destroy railroad and road
bridges, block the few highways leading toward lthe beachhead,
and blast any approaching tanks, trucks, and tractor-drawn artil
lery. At Matanzas, for instance, where I would soon be held a
prisoner with thirty-five hundred other men and women, the
only two good highways from Havana leading to the beach
head merge into a single road which runs for a considerable
stretch along the bay front, with water on one side and cliffs
on the other. To reach the beachhead Castro's tanks and mobile
guns, concentrated near Havana, undoubtedly would elect to
pass over this single highway. There they could be blasted into a
heap of bottleneck wreckage. They would be sitting ducks for
an air attack. The only other road from Havana part way to
the beachhead was of greatly inferior quality. During the early
hours of Tuesday, April 18, we prisoners in Matanzas watched
the first column of tanks and armor arriving from Havana and
moving slowly. with long pauses, in bumper-to-bumper fashion,
toward the point where it would merge with the second column
over the single stretch of road.
But this was only the first stage of the invasion, designed to
protect the beachhead. The second was to knock out the
island's electric power and communications. Without hitting the
main power plant in Havana, six undefended transformers lo
cated throughout the island could be reduced with machine-gun
fire or a single bomb. This would mute 90 to 95 percent of
Cuba's radio, telephone, telegraph, and television services. It
would paralyze virtually all of the country's industrial plants
dependent on electric power.
The supply of water in Cuba, even to the smallest home, is
also dependent upon electric power. Knocking out the six trans
formers would end 90 to 95 percent of the country's water
service. Uncontrollable fires would then light the Cuban skies
in every town and city from one end of the island to the other.
Under these panic conditions, with industry ground to a halt
because of lack of power, with spectacular fires burning in key
installations throughout the island owing to lack of water, with
Castro unable to talk to the people over the radio or television,
and, most important of all, with the knowledge on the part of
the populace that the United States was supporting the inva
sion, all Cubans agree that the Castro regime would have fallen
within a week.
And this was not all. The invasion plan also provided for
immobilizing Castro's tanks, trucks, and tractor-drawn weapons
by depriving his army of fuel. Cuba has no native fuel resources.
Except for the sugar industry, which bums bagasse, the residue
left after grinding sugar cane and extracting the juice, nearly all
its fuel needs are met through the importation of crude oil that
is refined into gasoline at three principal refineries, two located
in the Havana area and one at Santiago.
The Cuban pilots were instructed by their American advisers
not to bomb the refinery installations. The most vulnerable part
of a refinery is not the processing equipment, as is commonly
believed, since refinery designers build the reactors, furnaces,
and towers to withstand blasts from accidental explosions, hurri
canes and fires. The way to shut down a refinery, the pilots were
told, is to hit the main transformers outside the power plants.
Without power a refinery is helpless; the motors and pumps do
not function; there is no water or light.
Of course, gasoline storage tanks were a preferred target.
In addition to the storage tanks adjoining the three refineries
there were fifteen major bulk fuel storage installations through
out the island. These, too, were preferred targets. Also, the Cu
ban pilots had a plan of their own. There were three thousand
gasoline service stations scattered island-wide, individually small
but collectively significant. The pilots knew the location of every
one but, in order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, planned to
destroy only the principal ones, located near Castro's weaponry.
Thus it was a certainty that with complete control of the air
and operating out of their nearby air base, the attacking squad
ron could have knocked out all the refineries and storage facili
ties at will. None had protection against air attack; all were
completely vulnerable. Castro's trucks, tanks, tractor-drawn ar
tillery, and vehicles would soon have been immobilized. The
only mobile weaponry would have been that of the invaders,
supplied from the beaches.
Conditions inside Cuba in April 1961 presaged an overthrow
of the regime. Underground and terrorist activities mounted
with each passing day. Bombs exploded in government build
ings and industrial plants. Cars loaded with armed rebels often
went careening through the streets of Havana, adding to the
conviction that the end of the regime was approaching. As I
have already said, three days before the invasion the famous
EI Encanto department store, the largest in Havana, was burned
to the ground by saboteurs.
Finally, a hand-picked group of Cuban political leaders was
to be flown into Gir6n to set up a provisional government and
to call for recognition and military assistance. It was known that
most of the nations of the Caribbean area were ready to re
spond favorably to such a plea.
The CIA never viewed the operation as one in which the
landings would at once touch off a widespread insurrection in
a police-state. 16 Its view was that if the beachhead was success
fully consolidated, and if Castro's forces were defeated in at
tacks on the beachhead, and if the Brigade, with command of
the air, could supply outlying points, insurrection might occur.
At the very least there would be large-scale desertions from
Castro's militia. It was also believed that after a few days, fol
16 Charles C. V. Murphy, "Cuba, The Record Set Straight," Fortune,

September 1961.
lowing the recognition of the new government by several Latin
American nations and by the United States, Castro would be
receptive to a call for a cease-fire, which would be granted on
condition that free elections would soon be held.
This was the invasion plan evolved by the CIA, approved
by the Joint Chiefs, and improved by the Cuban invaders. It
was masterfully conceived, as I would hear Castro himself
admit. While Carmen and I were refugees in the Italian Em
bassy, Castro said in a television broadcast that if the invaders
had been able to consolidate their beachhead, the cost in lives
to reduce it would have been prohibitive. In truth, he would
have had no chance whatever to reduce it.
On April 4th the plan, designed to produce these results,

came up for final review at a dramatic meeting in the State
Department, over which President Kennedy presided. Among
those present were: Secretary of State Dean Rusk; Secretary
of the Treasury Douglas Dillon; Senator J. William Fulbright,
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Gen.
Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; Adm. Arleigh
Burke, Chief of Naval Operations; Allen W. Dulles, Director
of the CIA; Gen. Charles P. Cabell, Deputy Director of the
CIA; Paul Nitze, Assistant Secretary of Defense; Thomas
Mann, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs;
Presidential assistants McGeorge Bundy, Arthur M. Schlesinger,
Jr., and Richard Goodwin; Presidential consultant Adolf Berle;
and Richard M. Bissell, of the CIA, charged with supervising
Operation Pluto on a day-to-day basis.
Bissell is a modest, unassuming gentleman, with the power
to make intelligent decisions. He is a man of quiet manner,
with a soft voice, but now he spoke forcefully and lucidly, ex
plaining that the essential element of the proposed operation
was the destruction of Castro's small air force on the ground by
the three-plus pre-invasion air strikes. This, he said, could be
accomplished easily by the Cuban-manned bombers guided by
U.S. reconnaissance photographs.
The crowded conference room gave Bissell respectful atten
tion. He was the man mainly responsible for the CIA's share
in the extraordinarily successful U.S. reconnaissance satellite
program, which had finally opened the closed society of the
Soviet Union to U.S. intelligence inspection. Previously he had
shared in the development of the amazing U-2 independent Air
Squadron, which he eventually commanded.l1 These two sci
entific achievements were of incalculable importance to the
United States. They changed the entire strategic aspect of the
world before Kennedy took office. At the time of the Bay of
Pigs they had confirmed other intelligence reports that the So
viets had not developed and mounted any intercontinental bal
listic missiles (ICBMs). President Kennedy knew that any
Soviet threat to support Castro with ICBMs would be an empty
threat.
The sole voice raised against Operation Pluto at the meeting
was that of Senator Fulbright, who denounced the plan as im
moral. Six days earlier he had given the President a memoran
dum urging a policy of containment to meet the Castro-Commu
nist threat. Remember always, it had concluded, "The Castro
regime is a thorn in the flesh; but it is not a dagger in the
heart." 18 In view of what developed in the next few days it is
significant that Secretary of State Dean Rusk, at that time, did
not oppose the plan.
The following day, April 5, President Kennedy made his
decision to proceed with Operation Pluto. D-Day was to be
Monday, April 17, 1961.
17 Joseph Alsop, "A Debt Is Owed," The Hartford Courant, December

26, 1963.
18 Schlesinger, p. 2S1.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Aborted Invasion

There was jubilation in Happy Valley when President Ken
nedy's "Go Ahead" signal was received there. Happy Valley
was the code name of Puerto Cabezas, a coastal town in Nica
ragua, where Brigade 2506 had been flown from Guatemala.
The movement of the Brigade had taken several days, with the
windows of the transport planes covered with tape so that the
men, under complete American control, would not know their
destination until they landed. On their arrival they found the
Brigade Air Squadron awaiting them, together with several
cargo vessels.
Morale at Happy Valley remained very high. With word
that the invasion had been approved by the President the men
worked with new zest, day and night. Often they sang the Cu
ban national anthem as they gathered for a brief rest.
On Friday morning, April 14, 1961, copies of the invasion
plan were distributed to the Cuban officers for the first time: •
Commencing at H-Hour of D-Day, the Brigade is to en
gage in amphibious and parachute landings, take, occupy
and defend beachheads in the area of Cochinos Bay and
Playa Giron of the Zapata Swamps in order to establish a
base from which ground and air operations against the
Castro government of Cuba may be carried out. . . .
The plan, detailed on a large map, seeme~ superb. Seventy

THE ABORTED INVASION 281
two tons of arms, ammunition and equipment, sufficient to sup
port 4,000 men, would be unloaded on D-Day. Another 415
tons would be unloaded in the next ten days, and then 530
more, and then 607 tons I-there would be "continuing supplies
to the beaches." 2 The Castro forces were disorganized, the men
were told, and there were none near the invasion site. Castro
would have few tanks and no air force.
Nothing was said about U. S. air support, but the Cubans
were assured that no Castro planes would be in the air, that
Castro's columns would not be able to reach the beachhead
because they would be destroyed from the air. No trucks or
troops would be able to get through-all the roads would have
been bombed. Thousands of gallons of gasoline would be
loaded on cargo ships so that the Air Squadron could begin its
follow-up missions immediately after the Giron airport had been
seized. These missions would destroy the main railway and
highway bridges in order to shield the beachhead. There was to
be a diversionary landing in the eastern province and a simu
lated landing in the western province, accomplished with special
sound equipment that would give the impression of a great bat
tle being waged. This feature did, in fact, mislead Castro and
delay his dispatch of armor to Giron. He knew the invasion
was coming-it could not be a strategic surprise-but he did
not know when and where.
The Cubans were so impressed that no one asked any ques
tions. As the meeting broke up the men were cheering.
By contrast, there was little enthusiasm in Washington. By

April 11, reports indicated that serious disagreements had
emerged within the Kennedy administration as to how far the
United States should go in helping the Cubans overthrow Cas
tro. They indicated that some of those who had participated
1 Haynes Johnson, The Bay of Pigs (New York: W. W. Norton &

Company, 1964), p. 84.
2 From the article "We Who Tried," Life, May 10, 1963, p. 34.
DAGGER IN mE HEART
in the April 4th meeting had veered away from their first posi
tion.
One of the first critics, we now know, was Chester Bowles, a
former partner in a Madison A venue advertising agency who
·had become the No.2 man in the State Department. When Rusk
went to a SEATO conference in late March, Bowles, acting
in his place, learned of the invasion plan and was horrified. He
prepared a memorandum for Rusk, strongly opposing the un
dertaking, and on his return asked permission to carry his case
to the President. Rusk gave Bowles the impression that the
project would be cut down, probably into a guerrilla operation,
and Bowles was mollified. 3
Senator Fulbright also gave the President the previously men
tioned memorandum that Schlesinger has described as "bril
liant." If the invasion were a success, it argued, it would be
denounced throughout Latin America and cause trouble at the
United Nations. If it seemed to be failing, "we might be
tempted to use our own armed force ...." Supporting any plan
would be equivalent to "the hypocrisy and cynicism for which
the United States is constantly denouncing the Soviet
Union...." Fulbright strongly urged a policy of containment.4
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., had some influence in the Ken
nedy administration in its initial months. In early February he
gave the President a memorandum warning that the invasion
plan "would fix a malevolent image of the new administration
in the minds of millions." 5 After the April 4th meeting at the
State Department he advised Kennedy that he was opposed
to the operation. Feeling he had not made his position suffi
ciently strong, he prepared a memorandum early the next day
which foresaw the possibility that if the invasion appeared to
be failing and the Cubans called for American armed help, Con

Mifflin Company, 1965), pp. 250, 251.
4lbid., p. 250.
S Ibid., p. 240.
gress and other pressures might make it hard to resist the de
mand to send in the Marines. 6
"A course of bullying intervention would destroy the new
image of the United States," Schlesinger admonished the Presi
dent. "It is this reawakening world faith in America which is
at stake in the Cuban operation." 7 Later Schlesinger would ex
plain his position: "Nothing had been more depressing in the
whole series of meetings than to watch a collection of officials,
some of them holdovers from the previous administration, con
tentedly prepare to sacrifice the world's growing faith in the new
American President in order to defend interests and pursue
objectives of their own." 8 (Empha~is added) He gave the
President another memorandum five days after the first, along
the same lines.
An April 6 Schlesinger met with Richard Goodwin at break
fast to·· discuss further efforts to reverse the CIA plan. The
youthful Goodwin had been a speech-writer for the President,
who designated him to handle Latin America despite the fact
that he spoke no Spanish and had spent less than two weeks of
his life there. Abrasive and arrogant, Goodwin quickly came
into sharp contlict with career officers at the State Department.
Later that morning he went to see Rusk to express his opposi
tion. 9 He urged Schlesinger to send Rusk a copy of his memo
randa to Kennedy and follow it up with a personal visit, which
Schlesinger did the following morning. Rusk subsequently told
Schlesinger he (Rusk) had successfully pared down the am
phibious assault. to
Schlesinger's final contribution to the pre-invasion develop
ments was the preparation of a White Paper on Cuba which in
cluded the preposterous statement, "We acknowledge past
6 Ibid., p. 254.
7Ibid., p. 255.
8lbid.
91bid., p. 257.
10 Ibid.
omissions and errors in our relationship to them [the Cu
bans]." 11 When this document went through the process of
inter-departmental clearance, even Edward R. Murrow, then
heading the USIA, found it "too racy and liberal." 12 He ob
jected specifically to the confession of omissions and errors. But
Schlesinger, taking full advantage of the White House leverage,
resisted, and the document emerged virtually intact.
Tom between the opposing factions-the CIA and Joint
Chiefs on the one hand, the liberal politicos on the other
President Kennedy wavered. Finally he agreed to further com
promises which radically dismembered the original plan. They
were made without consulting the CIA or the Joint Chiefs, who,
when they learned of them, used every means at their disposal
to have them countermanded.
When the Zapata plan had first been submitted to the Presi
dent he suggested some changes intended to reduce the noise
level-such as having the invasion ships unload before dawn.
During the superb American record of amphibious operations
in the Pacific in World War II, not one assault landing had been
attempted at night. Kennedy's military advisers opposed the
night landing in this case too. They feared that the submerged,
razor-sharp coral reefs on the Cuban coast would pose a serious
threat to landing craft at night, making the operation risky, but
the President was adamant. After all, "world opinion" had to
be taken into account.
The next critical compromise was in air strike No. 1 against
Castro's airports, scheduled for dawn Saturday, April 15. The
plan called for a strike in full force, using the squadron's six
teen bombers. Here the State Department got into the act, ar
guing that the attacking group would look too numerous to be
consistent with the fiction that the air strike had been mounted
solely by defecting Cuban pilots. So, on an order from the
White House, the first strike force was whittled down to eight
11 Ibid., p. 245.
121bid., p. 246.

planes. This order cut the scheduled forty-eight sorties from
Happy Valley to forty.
About a week before the invasion the second of the three
planned strikes (scheduled for Sunday, April 16) was can
celed entirely. The reason given was the necessity of preserving
the "non-involvement image." The President's political advisers
also decided that two air strikes (really one-and-a-half) should
be sufficient to destroy Castro's planes on the ground. The num
ber of sorties from Happy Valley was now reduced from forty
eight to twenty-four.
These sharply downward revisions greatly alarmed the Joint
Chiefs and the CIA men responsible for the operation. They
considered recommending that the invasion be canceled. After
further review, however, they decided that the third air strike,
scheduled for D-Day-Monday, April 17--could be counted
on to eliminate the few aircraft Castro would have left. The
Communist air force was mostly concentrated at one base near
Havana and was under constant surveillance by American re
connaissance planes.
On April 12 uneasiness mounted at the CIA and the Penta
gon when President Kennedy stated at his press conference,
without consulting any military adviser, that "there will not
under any conditions be an intervention in Cuba by U.S. armed
forces." The government, he said, would make sure that "there
are no Americans involved." This unfortunate statement tied
the hands of the United States in advance. A clue to why the
President made it may be found in Schlesinger's statement that
on April 10 he suggested to Kennedy in still another memoran
dum that as a "first protection against step-by-step-involvement"
the Cuban leaders should be advised that "in no foreseeable cir
cumstance will we send in U.S. troops ...."13
"Kennedy understood this better than anybody and needed
no prodding," added Schlesinger. Pressure also came from Am
bassador Adlai Stevenson, who, according to Schlesinger, ex
131bid., p. 262.
pressed his misgivings at a White House conference and was
assured by the President that "whatever happened, United
States armed forces would not be used . . . ." The President's
announcement, nailed down when Stevenson quoted it at the
United Nations three days later and when Secretary Rusk re
peated it at his own press conference on April 17, was to prove
a contributing factor to the disaster.
The eight planes authorized to take part in strike No. 1

reached the south coast of Cuba at dawn on Saturday, April 15,
on three different courses. Coming in at low altitude, they
crossed the island without being picked up on Castro's primi
tive radar. The attack achieved complete surprise. Three planes
hit the field at San Antonio de los Banos; three more struck at
Camp Columbia in Havana; two others attacked the airport at
Santiago de Cuba. The Free Cuban Squadron lost three planes:
one B-26 was hit by anti-aircraft fire, crashed at sea, and both
pilots were lost; another, returning toward Nicaragua, made a
crash landing on Gran Cayman, a small British island; a third
cracked up as it just reached a U.S. base near Key West.
The Cubans and their American supervisors considered the
limited strike a success. Castro's air force had been cut in half
-but he still had at least two jets, three fast Sea Furies, and
two B-26's. The originally scheduled strike No.2, if it had
not been canceled out, no doubt would have finished them off,
with No.3 to follow.
I heard Castro in a televised report to the nation admit that
great damage had been done to his air force by this first strike.
He boasted, however, that he had immediately ordered a dis
persal of the remaining planes. The fact is that American recon
naissance photography, the finest in the world, spotted each
remaining plane and reported its exact location to Happy Val
ley. There was no way Castro could hide a plane. It appeared a
certainty that they would be mopped up on the ground by strike
No. 3 (still scheduled for takeoff at 1: 40 A.M. Monday). But a
new, wholly unexpected development in Washington changed
the picture.
At 3 P.M. on Sunday, April 16, the B-26 pilots at Happy
Valley were called together in the rear of the operations
shack. For the next four hours the Monday morning mission
was explained in detail by U.S. Intelligence officers, who dis
played remarkable aerial photographs taken by the American
reconnaissance planes. These photos clearly showed where each
Castro plane and anti-aircraft battery was located; tank, gun,
and truck concentrations; and a gunboat at anchor off Cien
fuegos on the south coast. Again stress was placed on the top
priority objective: "Destroy every Castro aircraft on
the ground!"
At 7: 30 P.M., when individual briefings had been completed,
an American adviser named Gregory Bell entered the room.
Glancing at a paper in his hand, he told the Cubans that it
might not be necessary for them to fly the scheduled Monday
mission. Apparently other planes would take care of Castro's
aircraft. Nevertheless, the pilots and crew were ordered to stand
by until the base confirmed the Washington order. Shortly after
midnight Bell returned with confirmation that the third strike
had been officially called off. This reduced the scheduled forty
eight sorties from Happy Valley to eight-the eight that had al
ready been carried out.
The Cuban pilots realized that some momentous decision had
been made in Washington but assumed, naturally, that it was a
decision favorable to their cause. Since there was no other Free
Cuban Air Squadron, the change of orders, they believed, could
mean only that U.S. military aircraft had beeu assigned to wipe
out the remaining Castro planes.
That night all hands were more confident than ever of the
success of the invasion.
Their confidence was unjustified. On the preceding day

Saturday, April 15-news of the first air strike against Cuban
airfields had brought loud repercussions at the United Nations.
RaUl Roa, Castro's Foreign Minister, appeared before the Gen
eral Assembly's Political Committee and charged that the
bombing was the prelude to an invasion planned, financed, and
directed by the United States.
As part of Operation Pluto two B-26 bombers, painted to re
semble the B-26's in Castro's air force, had flown from Nica
ragua directly to Key West and Miami, where the Free Cuban
pilots declared that the morning's raid was the work of Castro's
own pilots, who, like themselves, were revolting against the
Communist regime. My best information, though unverified, is
that the idea of this trick originated in the State Department,
but it may have originated with the CIA. It had been a last
minute suggestion, designed further to protect the "image" of
the United States. The illusion that such a subterfuge could be
kept a secret for forty-eight hours, with the UN in session, and
failure to weigh the consequences of its exposure, proved to
be one of the many political blunders.
When pilot and plane arrived in Miami they were photo
graphed, and the pictures were immediately distributed to the
wire services. Stevenson, in his rebuttal of Roa's charges, stated
flatly that the raiding planes were Castro's own and that the
pilots were defectors. He pointed to the Miami photographs as
evidence. He was unaware that a trick was involved; the State
Department had decided, for reasons of its own, not to inform
him of it. 14 He therefore accepted the story of "defecting" Cu
ban pilots at face value, rejecting Roa's accusations out of hand
with force and eloquence-and stepped into an embarrassing
trap.
Roa had no trouble in exploding the story. The B-26 flown
to Miami by the "defecting" pilot had a few features which
made it recognizably different from Castro's B-26's. The Cuban
delegate went on to charge that "mercenaries" hired by the
14 Johnson, p. 92.
THE ABORTED INVASION 28'
United States were about to bomb Cuba again. Stevenson an
swered that "steps have been taken to impound the Cuban
planes which have landed in Florida, and they will not be per
mitted to take off for Cuba." 15 The clear implication was that
there would be no further air strikes.
In the confusion that followed there is one certainty: when
Stevenson learned of the "defecting" pilot trick that had placed
him in such a distressing position before the United Nations, he
was furious. 16 It has been said that he threatened to resign if any
further strikes were launched. When he angrily telephoned Rusk
from New York, insisting that further strikes would place the
United States in an untenable position internationally, Rusk
capitulated. McGeorge Bundy agreed, and together they called
the President at Middleburg, Virginia, late Sunday afternoon.
The President also agreed and directed that further strikes be
canceled. Castro was left in unchallenged possession of the air.
This decision was entirely political. The Kennedy administra
tion had been in office less than three months. Stevenson had
twice been a candidate for the presidency and had a considerable
liberal following. The support of loyal Stevensonians had helped
Kennedy win the big cities in 1960 and provide the microscopic
margin that carried him to victory. Stevenson fully expected to
be offered the job of Secretary of State in the new administra
tion. Kennedy, however, had questioned Stevenson's capacity
for decision and had offered him the United Nations job, which
Stevenson at first declined. 17 When Kennedy asked Schlesinger
why Stevenson did not want the United Nations job, Schlesinger
replied that Stevenson wanted to help shape foreign policy
rather than be at the other end of the telephone. But when Rusk
was appointed Secretary of State, Stevenson finally accepted
15 Ibid., p. 93.
16 Hanson W. Baldwin, "The Cuban Invasion," The New York Times,
July 31, 1961, p. 3. Also, Stewart Alsop, "The Lessons of the Cuban
Disaster," The Saturday Evening Post, June 24, 1961, p. 70.
17 Schlesinger, pp. 138-139.
the Ambassadorship to the UN. Rusk had been a Stevenson
supporter in the 1960 campaign and had worked actively in his
behalf.
Rusk and Bundy are now the only two who can give an au
thoritative account of the pressure put on the President through
them by Stevenson on April 15 and 16 to cancel further air
strikes. However, the actions that climaxed the hectic weekend
are undeniable. Late Sunday evening, April 16, an order was
issued from the White House canceling the final and crucial
air strike scheduled for dawn the next morning, D-Day. The
order was transmitted to General C. P. Cabell, Deputy Director
of the CIA, by presidential aide McGeorge Bundy, who then
made a hurried trip to New York to placate Stevenson. Hanson
Baldwin, military analyst of The New York Times, subsequently
expressed the opinion that "the cancellation was apparently the
result of representations by Secretary of State Dean Rusk and
through him by Mr. Stevenson." 18
The third strike by the Brigade's Air Squadron, scheduled to
coincide with the invasion, could not conceivably have increased
any damage to American prestige in world opinion. At that point
the cards were down and nothing further could be hidden. The
assault troops had to come from somewhere and the attacking
planes did too. Whatever "non-involvement" argument could
be made for canceling the second air strike did not apply to
the third air strike scheduled for Monday. The decision to can
cel it was taken for domestic political reasons, to appease one
man, Adlai Stevenson.
That decision sealed the doom of the invasion and marked it
for certain disaster. For fifteen hundred Cubans already on their
way to the Bay of Pigs, it amounted to a sentence of death--or
at best, captivity and torture-pronounced by the nation which
had mobilized, trained, and sent them on their mission. The
supposition that this patently immoral act would somehow en
hance that nation's world image surpasses understanding. The
18 Baldwin, p. 3.
immediate calling off of the invasion might have made some
logic; its abandonment to destruction made none.
The cancellation order was a staggering blow to the CIA.
Cabell, a U.S. Air Force general with a brilliant combat record,
and Bissell, charged with supervising Operation Pluto, instantly
recognized the impending catastrophe. They went at once to
the State Department.
Secretary Rusk listened to their arguments and pleas but
insisted that the political disadvantages of further strikes out
weighed any other consideration. The invasion force was at sea
and only a few hours from the scheduled landings. Rusk was
reminded that the Free Cubans' slow, propeller-driven B-26's
were no match for Castro's wasp-like jets, which were still op
erable. These jets could control the air, sink ships with rockets,
and decimate the landing force. The Secretary was unmoved.
The political factors must govern, he said, adding that in his
opinion the CIA was overstressing the danger of enemy planes. 19
Rusk had been an infantry reserve officer after graduating
from Davidson College in North Carolina. He took part in two
campaigns in Burma, rising to be Deputy Chief of Staff for that
theater with the rank of coloneL He was released from active
duty in February 1946, when he joined the Department of State.
Eventually he became its Director of the Office of Special Politi
cal Affairs, which later became the Office of United Nations M
fairs. In 1949 he became the first Assistant Secretary for United
Nations Affairs. Now he supported the Ambassador to the UN
in spite of his military experience.
Finally, however, Rusk telephoned President Kennedy, who
was still in Middleburg, Virginia. 20 He reported the pleas of the
CIA representatives and expressed his own unalterable oppo
sition. The President decided that the cancellation order would
stand. Stunned and dismayed, Bissell and Cabell returned to the
operations room, where, according to a former Executive
19 Charles C. V. Murphy, "Cuba: The Record Set Straight," Fortune,

September 1961, p. 230.
10 Ibid•• p. 230.
DAGGER IN THE HEART
Director of the CIA, they were "greeted by an appalled and
angry group of officers who described the change in plans with
such phrases as 'criminally negligent.''' 21 Cabell complied with
the President's order.
That was the order that Gregory Bell confirmed to the pilots
of Happy Valley shortly after midnight on Sunday. The men
had no way of knowing it but at that instant Cuba's dream of
liberation was shattered, and Fidel Castro was handed a smash
ing victory-about six hours before the first blood was shed at
Gir6n.
Two days before this fatal decision, the ninety-five American

advisers of Brigade 2506 said their farewells to their Cuban
friends, who so greatly admired them. They were young, tough,
experienced war veterans and on parting, Cubans and Ameri
cans embraced affectionately. Every American expressed regret
that he could not go along. The President of Nicaragua came to
the dock to see the troops off. "Bring me a couple of hairs from
Castro's beard," he called.
Each battalion had been issued different colored scarves
yellow, white, blue, black, red-and as the ships slowly put out
to sea the waving scarves added color to the memorable oc
casion.
As the invasion fleet, consisting of 5 freighters (Liberty
ships) and 2 LCI's (Landing Craft Infantry) moved slowly out,
the Cubans saw something that thrilled and heartened them
the U.S. Navy was at hand. The transports had been loaded
with meticulous care, under American supervision. Supplies
most needed at Giron, which would be unloaded first, were the
last to go aboard. "My ship, the Atlantico," its radio operator
has told me, "was like an immense hardware store. It carried
198 items of armament, including 35 kinds of grenades." The
21Lyman B. Kirkpatrick, The Real CIA (New York: The MacmnIan

Company, 1967), p. 198.
THE ABORTED INVASION 2'3
freighters were so tightly loaded with high explosives, mines,
ammunition, food, medicine, and drums of aviation gasoline
that they rode low in the water; the men slept where they could,
in lifeboats, on deck, or down below. Smoking was prohibited.
The LeI's, the Barbara J and Blagar, were radar-equipped and
well-armed with .50-caliber anti-aircraft guns. Although ships of
this kind had crossed the Atlantic on their own bottoms and
were designed to beach and then lower bow gangways for in
fantry to land, the Navy knew that land-based aircraft could
slaughter any landing force before it reached a beachhead. The
Blagar was the command ship.
As the vessels moved away from Happy Valley on different
courses, with orders to rendezvous at "Point Zulu," about fifty
miles south of Giron, they were picked up by destroyer escorts.
On one occasion a U.S. submarine surfaced and circled one of
the transports. The sea was calm, "like a lake."
During the three-day voyage to Point Zulu there was an acci
dent on the Atlantico. While some men were practice-firing a
.50-caliber machine gun, its mountings tore loose and bullets
sprayed the deck. One man was killed and two wounded, one
badly shot through the stomach. There was no doctor on board
so the master asked the escorting destroyer what he should do.
"Come to a complete halt," he was told, aud moments later the
destroyer drew up alongside, "so quickly and close we thought
there would be a collision." American sailors scrambled aboard
from a launch. The Cubans lining the rails were astonished at
the efficiency of the Americans. The man who had been shot
through the stomach was taken to an aircraft carrier, where he
underwent an operation and later fully recovered. 22
The transports arrived at Point Zulu on schedule, between 4
and 5 P.M. on Sunday, April 16, each vessel circling until
the entire group had formed. When all had been reunited
22 This account was related to the author by Enrique Rousseau, the

Radio Officer of the Atlantica.
they were ordered to proceed shoreward as long as they had
four fathoms of water. Other vessels proceeding from Vieques
Island, an American base near Puerto Rico, joined them.
As the shore, shrouded in darkness, became dimly visible, the
lights of Giron "looked like Coney Island." Cuba was never so
dark and mysterious to ancient sea-rovers as she seemed that
night. On the transports in the hushed tension, one could hear
only the rushing water and the throbbing of the ships' engines.
About this time a large vessel joined the fieet with a number of
small landing craft on board, each of which could carry about
fifty men. The fleet carried four medium tanks, about twenty
trucks, a bulldozer, a crane, and a trailer with a portable radio
station.
At 4 A.M. Monday, after the third strike had been canceled,
while frogmen were marking the channels for landing craft
through the reefs off Giron, and with some assault troops al
ready ashore, Cabell returned to Rusk to plead for air support
from the U.S. carriers lying over the horizon. Among the ships
were the aircraft carrier Essex and the helicopter landing ship
Boxer, with destroyer escorts. The Boxer had a battalion of a
thousand battle-ready Marines aboard, and transports carrying
other Marines were in the area. The White House wanted the
U.S. ships kept fifty miles away from shore but Admiral Arleigh
Burke, in naval jargon, "leaned on his orders," and the vessels
drew nearer. Eventually Burke ordered the carrier Shangri-La
with a third task force into the area.
With Rusk still solidly opposed to providing American sup
port, Cabell himself telephoned President Kennedy in Virginia.
The President supported Rusk. The answer, still: No.
So during that fateful night and early morning, with the final
air strike canceled and U.S. air support refused, the invasion
fieet moved steadily toward catastrophe.
At lOp .M. Sunday, one of the LCI's led a freighter close in
to the beach at Giron. Some 20 miles to the west another LCI
escorted a second freighter into the Bay of Pigs. From another
vessel appearing out of the night the clank and clash of gears
told that landing craft were being lowered. As the noise of
landing-craft diesel engines was added to the din, the lights
at Giron began to go out. It was the first alert to anyone inside
Cuba that the invasion was under way. A single machine gun
emplacement on shore opened fire. An LCI quickly wiped it out
with its .SO-caliber guns. The time was 12:05 A.M., Monday,
Apri117.
Soon the first assault troops, in spotted camouflage uniforms
and with their faces painted black, were leaping ashore and
streaking for their objectives. A few boats were ripped apart on
submerged coral reefs. Before dawn many of the invaders
reached the town of Giron, where they went from house to
house reassuring the citizens: "We are Cubans. We have come
to liberate Cuba!"
The first stage of the invasion had been spectacularly success
ful. The three roads across the Cienaga de Zapata swamp had
been interdicted by paratroopers. The invaders had control of
the Giron airport, the pri::tary objective, and that very morning,
they thought, their own bombers would be using it. Scores of
militiamen and citizens in the Giron area joined the liberation
forces, asking for arms. Five hundred sugar workers gathered
together at a nearby mill, prepared to join. The bu;tk of a Castro
militia regiment defected. Within a few hours the victorious
forces had control of an area of eight hundred square miles!
Then, to their astonishment and dismay, with most invaders
ashore and with others approaching in small boats and still
others struggling to unload the freighters, Castro's planes came
roaring in, guns and rockets blazing. The Brigade, unbelievably,
was defenseless.
By 8 A.M. one freighter, struck by a rocket, had to be beached
on a reef in the Bay of Pigs about three hundred yards offshore.
The men swam ashore without guns or ammunition. Later a
Castro Sea Fury dived out of the sun and made a direct hit with
a rocket on a second freighter off the Giron beach. The ship,
carrying a precious cargo of anti-tank road mines, ammunition,
food, gasoline, and the radio communication trailer, blew up
with a tremendous blast and sank quickly. Supplies for the first
week's fighting were lost. Near the Atlantica a Castro plane was
hit and disintegrated in the air, pieces falling on the ship's deck.
But Castro's remaining 2 or 3 jets, 3 Sea Furies, and 2
B-26's commanded the skies. At 3 P.M. the 3 freighters still
afloat were ordered by the Blagar to leave the invasion area.
The medium tanks and a few trucks had been landed before the
ships departed, but the withdrawal left the landing forces
stranded on the beaches with less than 10 percent of their am
munition and other critically needed equipment. As the Castro
troops closed in on them over the highways, they fought des
perately and bravely, inflicting heavy losses. A conservative
estimate is that about 1,200 of Castro's forces died in battle,
an additional 400 later from wounds, and that more than 2,000
were wounded.
The Free Cuban commander on the beach asked repeatedly
for air support. By radio he pleaded, "Where is the air cover?
Do you back us or quit?" Several times he was told by the
American in command on the Blagar that air support was com
ing, and once that air cover would be over the beaches in a
matter of minutes.
U.S. Navy jets did in fact fly over the invasion area on sev
eral occasions, usually in pairs. When they first appeared,
Castro's jets vanished from the air. The invaders on the beaches
cheered as the American planes dipped their wings in salute and
flew inland. They were sure that the turning point had come.
But soon the Navy jets headed out to sea. Castro's planes then
returned and brazenly remained over the beachhead during
subsequent U.S. flights.
What happened, I later ascertained, was that since Adlai
Stevenson, at the UN on Saturday, and Secretary of State Rusk,
at his Monday press conference, had repeated with emphasis
President Kennedy's earlier statement that U.S. forces would not
intervene in any way, Castro assured his pilots that the U.S.
Navy jets posed no threat-they were merely "taking photo
graphs." Thus, after their first disappearance from the scene,
Castro's jets renewed their devastating attacks, ignoring the oc
casional, powerful U.S. jets, which took no part in the fighting
at any time.
The Free Cuban Air Squadron, although no match for Cas
tro's jets and Sea Furies, engaged in the unequal contest and
lost half its planes the first day. The lumbering B-26's, loaded
with 1,500 gallons of gasoline, 8 five-inch rockets, 8 machine
guns with 3,000 rounds of ammunition, and 10 bombs weighing
250 pounds each, were easy prey for Castro's jets. One B-26
was shot down from the rear by a Castro jet about 50 miles
at sea. The pilots nevertheless continued flying the long seven
hour missions between Nicaragua and the beachheads, even
after the task was clearly hopeless. With machine guns and
rockets they sprayed the advancing Castro columns and blew
up tanks and trucks loaded with militiamen. They sank the gun
boat anchored at Cienfuegos and a coast guard cutter approach
ing Giron beach.
Of the original sixteen bombers, eight were lost and five badly
damaged. Ten pilots were killed in the first two days. Only three
of the original bombers survived the entire action. Tuesday night
American pilots flew additional bombers into the Nicaraguan
staging area to replace those lost or damaged. What gave out
finally was the Squadron's manpower.
The earliest reports from the Bay of Pigs, reaching Washing

ton over U.S. Navy circuits, confirmed the worst fears of the
CIA and the Joint Chiefs. When the President learned of the air
squadron's decimation by Castro's jets, and the loss of the two
freighters, he again wavered, turning partly away from his
political advisers. On Monday afternoon, when it was too late,
he countermanded his Sunday evening order forbidding strikes
against the Castro airfields. This resulted in a mission dispatched
to bomb the San Antonio de los Banos base near Havana on
Monday night. But this so-called "air strike," as it later turned
out, was in reality no strike at all.
On Tuesday the dispatches reaching Washington grew grim
mer by the hour. That evening Bissell realized that his warnings
could no longer be disregarded. The impending collapse, he was
convinced, armed him for a last effort to save Operation Pluto.
He sent word to the President that he must see him urgently.
President Kennedy was holding a reception at the White
House for his Cabinet and members of Congress and their wives.
But he left the party and joined Bissell in a tense meeting, to
which Secretaries Rusk and McNamara, General Lemnitzer,
Admiral Burke, McGeorge Bundy, Lyndon Johnson, Schlesing
er, and Walt Rostow had been summoned.23
Strongly supported by Burke and Lemnitzer, Bissell made an
impassioned and fervent appeal for the only thing that could
now save the Cuban invasion: use of the U.S. military power
available on the ships just over the Caribbean horizon. Rusk
and the political advisers opposed him. Secretary of Defense
McNamara also opposed the military. The President decided
in favor of Rusk and his supporters.
Next Bissell and Burke asked that a detachment of Marines
be permitted to go into action. This too was refused. All these
proposals, they were reminded, would amount to V.S. "involve
ment" and lower American prestige in "world opinion."
The last request made by Admiral Burke was for the use of
one V.S. destroyer, to lay down a barrage on Castro's forces.
The President asked, "What if Castro's forces return the fire
and hit the destroyer?" Burke answered, emphatically, "Then
we'll knock hell out of them!"
The President said that then the V.S. would be involved. My
informants quote, with obvious admiration, Burke's answer:
"We are involved, sir. God damn it, Mr. President, we can't
let those boys be slaughtered there!"
The outcome of that meeting was perhaps the most timid
compromise of all. The President agreed that Navy planes with
their V.S. markings painted out could fly "reconnaissance" over
the beaches, but they should not engage in combat and they
THE ABORTED INVASI'ON
could fly for one hour only, from 6:30 to 7:30 A.M.! That was
the extent of the "support" that was authorized. Although Ken
nedy knew that the Cubans had been promised continuing sup
plies to the beaches, betrayal seemed preferable to compromising
the American "image" before the rest of the world.
Several accounts have claimed that President Kennedy, in
response to the final plea of the CIA and Joint Chiefs, authorized
a V.S. "air umbrella" over the invasion perimeter to permit the
Free Cuban Squadron to "attack in force." Actually, on
Wednesday morning, April 19, of the original thirty-four Cuban
B-26 pilots the number able to fly was pitifully small. Yet a final
air mission was pieced together in Nicaragua. It was composed
of one unarmed C-46 transport plane piloted by two Cubans;
two B-26's each piloted by two American instructors; a C-54
piloted by two Americans accompanied by a Cuban; and a B-26
piloted by Gonzalo Herrera, who emerged as one of the many
heroes of the Brigade.
The B-26's had orders to attack Castro's heavy artillery that
was inflicting losses on the Brigade, and their mission was ac
complished. The bombs of all three planes were dropped on
their targets. Herrera remained in action for fifty minutes before
the Castro jets appeared and attacked the Americans, who chal
lenged them against overwhelming odds. The C-54 had de
veloped engine trouble and was forced to return. The C-46
landed at Gir6n--the only invader plane to use the airport
and delivered eight hundred pounds of supplies. It picked up
Matias Farias, the only wounded Cuban who was nearby, and
made it back to the Nicaraguan base. Farias also emerged as
one of the many Cuban heroes.
By an incredible mischance the planes from Nicaragua had
arrived over the beaches an hour before the V.S. carrier-based
jets expected them. The mystery of this mistake remains un
solved. The two B-26's piloted by Americans were shot down.
Gonzalo Herrera heard his American comrades vainly calling
for carrier support. Their distress signals "Mad Dog Four! May
Day! May Dayl" brought no response, no help. One landed in
300 DAGGER L~ mE HEART
flames at a sugar mill air strip; the other crashed into the sea.
Castro, who had always delighted in publicizing American "ag
gression," made no announcement of the deaths of the Ameri
cans. He feared that evidence of U.S. involvement would shatter
the morale of his armed forces.
Shortly before 5 P.M. on Wednesday, April 19, the Free

Cuban beach commander sent his final message to the American
vessels standing off Giron: "I am destroying all my equipment,"
he said, "I have nothing left to fight with. The enemy tanks are
already in my position. Farewell, friends." 24
By nightfall the fighting on the beaches was over. For three
days the men had fought without rest and with little food or
water. The promised supplies had never reached them. Now they
had run out of ammunition and food. Gathering their remaining
strength, the men crawled into the swamps. There some survived
for two weeks before they died or were captured. Almost to a
man they were killed or taken prisoner. A few put out to sea in
tiny fishing boats found along the beach. One of these, with 22
men aboard, drifted for 15 days without food or water. When it
was picked up by an American freighter, 178 miles from the
Mississippi delta, there were only 12 survivors.
I have talked to two American pilots who flew helplessly over
the Cuban beaches as Castro's tanks and forces closed in on the
final day. One told me he had cursed his orders; the other said
he had cried.
A few of the invaders were picked out of the sea by U.S.
Naval vessels. "The Sailors and Marines seemed to be ashamed,"
one told me. "They tried to be extra nice. If we asked for a
cigarette, they gave us the whole pack and when we asked for a
light, they gave us a lighter and told us to keep it."
Castro's hawk-like planes, spared by the cancellation of the
air strikes, had been in the air constantly. They operated in
pairs, while others reloaded and refueled nearby. Flying at
24]ohnson, pp. 167, 168.

twice the speed of the cumbersome Free Cuban bombers, these
jets had turned the tide of battle, just as Burke, Bissell, Cabell,
and Lemnitzer had foreseen and forewarned. But Castro's es
cape had been narrow--only two or three of his planes survived
the action.
After the invasion I heard Castro speak of his militia with a
peculiar kind of contempt. "They lack discipline and need addi
tional training and indoctrination," he said. But he spoke with
great pride of the remnant of his tiny air force, which he said
had saved the day.
Why had not the Cuban underground performed up to ex

pectations?
During an early stage of the Brigade's training in Guatemala
about sixty men had been chosen to received special training in
Panama as saboteurs. Later they were infiltrated into Cuba to
help prepare the way for the invaders. In March 1961 there were
six main underground groups inside Cuba, each coordinated as
a unit and all doing considerable damage. Bombs exploded in
factories and other buildings, railway rolling stock was wrecked
and bridges destroyed. The great Hershey sugar mill was sabo
taged and stores in the heart of Havaua burned. But the under
ground groups operated independently of one another, rivalries
existed, and the CIA wished to coordinate their activities under
trained leadership.
An underground leader in Cuba who commanded great re
spect because of his courage, discretion, and resourcefulness,
was a tall young activist named Rogelio GonzaIez Corzo, who
went under the cover name of "Francisco." In March the CIA
sent Humberto Sori Mann to Cuba on a "unification" mission.
Sori Marin had served as Castro's Minister of Agriculture be
fore his defection. He was to meet with Francisco and other
group leaders to plan coordinated action under trained leader
ship, arranging for an orderly distribution of arms, explosives,
and incendiary material.
A full-scale meeting was arranged with the utmost precaution
for 6 P.M. on March 18, 1961, in a suburb of Havana. Trusted
couriers, each unknown to the others, escorted group leaders to
the secret meeting place, a yellow building on a quiet street in
Miramar, owned and lived in by a retired sugar engineer and his
wife.
Betrayed by a Castroite, the building was surrounded, and in
one swoop Castro's intelligence network arrested the key figures
of the Cuban underground. Their arrest-all were later executed
-was a crushing blow to the underground movement, a blow
from which it has not yet recovered. These men were also
heroes; we know who they were and they will be remembered
and honored. Equipment which the various groups expected
from the outside never arrived. Contact with the CIA by these
groups was lost. The Sori Marin mission was the last of several
frustrating CIA efforts to help the underground. Had it been
successful, however, the defeat of the Brigade on the beaches
would have destroyed its usefulness in any case.
The invasion was over. Castro's boast of how little Cuba had,
in three days, defeated mighty Uncle Sam was now heard
around the world, relayed triumphantly by Moscow and Peking.
U.S. prestige dropped to a new low in Latin America, the Near
East, Southeast Asia, and among its European allies. Fidel
Castro was raised to the pinnacle of his prestige. The invasion,
instead of overthrowing Castro, had entrenched him.
For months there had been no doubt about U.S. involvement,
but now it was an involvement in betrayal and failure. The
"world opinion" for which the Washington liberals had been
so willing to sacrifice national honor now turned sharply against
the United States. For those Americans who were aware of
what had taken place, and why, sorrow was compounded by
humiliation and shame.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Apologists at Work
Public confusion over the Giron defeat has been fostered by

misleading and even false statements made by political figures
who were close to President Kennedy. Notable among these
was his brother Robert F. Kennedy, who served as Attorney
General. In an interview published in U.S. News & World Re
port for January 28, 1963, the younger Kennedy said, "There
was a flurry at the United Nations and elsewhere . . . . There
was supposed to be another attack on the airports on Monday
morning [April 17]. The President was called about whether
... [it] should take place. As there was this stir about the mat
ter, he gave instructions that it should not take place at that
time . . . And, in fact, the attack on the airports took place
later that day. [Emphasis added]"
What was the "attack on the airports" that Bobby Kennedy
said "took place that day"?
On Monday two Free Cuban bombers were authorized by
their American commander to hit the San Antonio airfield,
where Castro planes were parked. They were warned, however,
to avoid any risk to civilian lives or property. The planes took
off from Nicaragua at about 8 P.M. They arrived over the target
four hours later, on a moonless night, with both the base and
the nearby town blacked out and hidden by a low cloud
ceiling. Unable to distinguish the target, the pilots obeyed their
orders and returned to Nicaragua without firing a shot or drop
ping a bomb!
To call this "an attack on the airports" and to equate it with
the original air strike planned for Monday dawn (and then
canceled) , which was to have been carried out by sixteen
bombers manned by fresh pilots fully briefed with U-2 target
photographs before them, is not exactly an exercise in candor.
Such word-play with the facts is the more reprehensible because
they relate not to a side issue but to the central element in the
plan.
Robert Kennedy was a member of the committee appointed
by his brother to investigate the fiasco; he helped write the
committee's still-secret report. Certainly he had access to all
the facts, including those related to the air strikes that were
planned and then called off. He must have known that it is not
a "fact" that the original Monday attack on the airports "took
place later that day," or at any time thereafter.
The investigating committee knew that four American in
structors had died in the Giron action, but on January 21, 1963,
Attorney General Kennedy said in an interview with David
Kraslow of the Knight newspapers that no Americans had died
at the Bay of Pigs. The truth was revealed a month later. The
authors of The Invisible Government, Wise and Ross, relate
it: ". . . the story of the four missing Americans . . . . reap
peared dramatically on February 25, 1963. On that date Sena
tor Everett McKinley Dirksen . . . revealed that four American
fliers had been killed at the Bay of Pigs. He said he had learned
this in the course of a one-man inquiry into the Cuban invasion.
Dirksen's disclosure was extremely embarrassing for the Ken
nedy administration." 1 The authors tell how, after Dirksen
made this disclosure, newsmen sought out the mother of one
of the fliers, who was quoted as having said, "If no Americans
were involved, where is my son?"
In the same January interview in which Bobby Kennedy

denied that any Americans had been killed in the invasion, he
1 David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New

York: Random House, 1964), p. 86.
APOLOGISTS AT WORK 305
repeated the line that the "second" planned air strike had been
postponed but carried out later. The invasion plan, he said, had
been "a bad plan. Victory was never close .... We underesti
mated what a T-33 carrying rockets could do. It wasn't given
sufficient thought."
How near was victory?
This is the account of Roberto San Roman, one of the Bri
gade officers, on the manner in which Robert Kennedy and
General Maxwell D. Taylor led the questioning by the investigat
ing committee:
... this was a question of Mr. Kennedy-he wanted to

know the reaction of the people. They wanted to know if
we thought we could have won the battle. What did we
need to win the battle? I told them we needed only three
or four jet planes, that's what we needed to win. Three or
four jet planes that could knock out the little air force
that Castro had at that time. I told them I did not know
how they [the Americans] could do this to us. Our troops
were so good-because they involved people from every
class, rich and poor, rebels and soldiers and everybody
against the common enemy-and they didn't answer those
questions. 2
Men in public office are as human as the rest of us, subject

to all the frailties of man, one of which is the desire to hide
their mistakes. It is natural that politicians will use all the
power at their command to keep their mistakes from being
disclosed. Consider, for example, the case of Adlai Stevenson.
In late 1962, while researching material for this book, I wrote
to Ambassador Stevenson from Europe, politely asking what
his role had been in the cancellation of the final air strike sched
uled for Monday, April 17. The answer came from Elinor
Green, Public Affairs Officer of the U.S. Mission to the UN.
Mr. Stevenson wished to convey his appreciation for the trouble
2 Haynes Johnson, The Bay of Pigs (New York: W. W. Norton &:

Company, Inc.. 1964), pp. 221-222.
1 had taken to check with his office, she said, adding "on behalf
of Mr. Stevenson":
Mr. Stevenson had no information in advance of the Bay

of Pigs incident, as he said only last week on a televised
interview, and had no hand in any decisions concerning
United States actions or inactions. As he stated, in answer
to a question ou the Today show, December 5th. . . . "I
wasn't told about the Bay of Pigs in advance, so 1 couldn't
have had any disagreement."
The fact is that Mr. Stevenson was briefed on the invasion

plan by the CIA about a week in advance. His close friend
Schlesinger eventually told the story:
Kennedy . . . wished Stevenson to be fully informed,

and that nothing said at the UN should be less than the
truth, even if it could not be the full truth. . . . In prepara
tion for the debate [on Cuban charges of aggressive Ameri
can intentions] Tracy Barnes [of the CIA] and I held a
long talk with Stevenson on April 8 [9 days before the
invasion]. . . . Afterward, when Harlan Cleveland, the
Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs,
Clayton Fritchey of the United States Mission to the UN,
and I lunched with Stevenson at the Century, he made it
clear that he wholly disapproved of the plan . . . and be
lieved that it would cause infinite trouble. 3
And what of the Bay of Pigs disaster as described several

years after the event by Sorensen and Schlesinger, whose ac
counts have done so much to formulate world opinion?
Although both admit that the CIA and Joint Chiefs made it
crystal clear to all concerned that the destruction of Castro's
tiny air force on the ground prior to the invasion was an essential
element of the plan, they have nothing but praise for the political
meddlers who succeeded in cutting down and making unwork
able the military plan formulated by the professionals.

Miftlin Company, 1965), p. 271.
Sorensen actually states that Kennedy should have paid more
attention to his own politically sound instincts and to the politi
cally knowledgeable men who voiced objections, such as Ful
bright and Schlesinger! The assurance given the President by
the U.S. military that the Brigade could achieve its goals with
out American participation was a "wild misjudgment." There
was no reason to believe that Castro's air force "having survived
the first air strike and been dispersed into hiding," [emphasis
added] would have been knocked out by the second one. Hence.
the President's "postponement" of the last strike "played only a
minor role." Even with two more strikes twice as large, the
Brigade could not have broken out of its beachhead or survived
much longer without substantial help from either American
forces or the Cuban people. Sorensen wrote, "Neither was in
the cards, and thus a Brigade victory at the Bay of Pigs was
never in the cards either."
Thus we have Gir6n as presented by Presidential Assistant
Sorensen!
Schlesinger's account is full of examples of Kennedy's per
sonal courage. Like Sorensen, he writes that "There is certainly
nothing to suggest that it [what he calls the second air strike]
could possibly have led to the overthrow of the regime." And.
like Sorensen, he says Kennedy thought he was approving a
plan whereby the invaders, should they fail to hold their beach
head, could melt into the mountains and take up guerrilla war
fare. According to Schlesinger, Dulles and Bissell told Kennedy
that 'if worst came to worst and the invaders were beaten on
the beaches, they could easily slip away into the mountains. "I
don't think we fully realized," the historian ingenuously com
ments, "that the Escambtay Mountai8s lay eighty miles from
the Bay of Pigs, across a hopeless tangle of swamps and
jungles." 4
Here, giving these men the benefit of the doubt, they were
probably confusing the Trinidad and the Bay of Pigs plans. The
"Ibid.. p. 2'0.
invasion planners have assured me that the President was com
pletely familiar with all details of the terrain. Verbally, with
the use of the finest maps that can be made, they explained to
him that their preference for Trinidad was based mainly on the
fact that at Giron the Brigade had no alternative to fall back
on-the distance to the mountains, over a single road blocked
by Castro's troops, and with the invaders out of ammunition,
food and water, was the distance from New York to Phila
delphia.
Schlesinger, in his own defense, once quoted British philos
opher Walter Bagehot: "When a historian withholds important
facts likely to influence the judgment of his readers, he commits
a fraud." 5 Nevertheless, in $luoting the final dispatch sent to the
President by his special emissary, the Marine colonel who eval
uated the Brigade in Guatemala, Schlesinger omits the key
sentence: "They [the Brigade officers] ask only for continued
delivery of supplies [to the beaches]." 6
No supplies were ever delivered.
Six years after Giron another Kennedy apologist, Roger
Hilsman, wrote a 582-page book in which he devoted exactly
4 pages to the Bay of Pigs, "a comparatively small disaster." 7
The liberal Hilsman, head of Intelligence in the State Depart
ment, followed the Schlesinger-Sorensen line. For him the
"experts" were not those in the Pentagon or the CIA. He him
self wanted to get into the act, as he had "plenty of people in
[my] Bureau" who were experts. He asked Rusk to permit him
to put them to work, and his request was denied. He feels, in
retrospect, that he should have gone ahead on his own authority;
should not have asked "to be permitted to do a study...." The
State Department did not play its role "in forcing full weight
to be given to political considerations." The operation "had
been prepared by the previous administration" and, although
5 Time, December 17, 1965, p. 55.

e Life, May to, 1963, p. 34.
7 Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation (New York: Doubleday &
Company. Inc., 1967). pp. 30-34.
APOLOGISTS AT WORK
Rusk, "seems to have made some sort of attempt to get the
operation played down," whatever opposition came from him
"was neither strong nor clear." According to Hilsman, the "can
cellation of the 'second' strike did not doom the Bay of Pigs
operation" and "Above all, both the Secretary [Rusk] and the
department [of State] failed to make the case for political con
siderations that should have been made." [Emphasis addedp
Six years after the sad events, amazingly, he was still ignorant
of the plain record that political considerations did prevail, and
that as a result of this the military plan was so distorted that in
effect it was never put into operation.
And what of the position taken by President John F. Ken

nedy after the invasion collapse?
The President's first problem, according to Schlesinger, "was
to contain the political consequences of the debacle. He moved
now with sure instinct. . . ." 9 Kennedy wished to protect him
self against partisan attack. Also he wanted to avoid pressure
from within the United States for violent retaliation against
Castro. to Although the Republicans, according to Schlesinger,
were inhibited "by their own role in conceiving the operation,"
Kennedy took no chances. l l He called in Richard Nixon
[whose advice on Cuba was to "find a proper legal cover and
. . . go in" 12] and by the weekend he had talked to Dwight
Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, and Barry Goldwater. "Harry
S. Truman, being a Democrat, required only the attention of
the Vice President."
Among Kennedy's closest advisers there was an instinct for
self-preservation, tempting some of them to put out versions
of the episode ascribing the debacle to everyone but themselves.
81bid., p. 34.
10 Ibid., p. 287.
11 Ibid., p. 288.
Digest, November 1964, p. 291.
The press was filled with what purported to be inside stories.
At an early meeting on Friday, April 21, with Rusk, Bundy,
Sorensen, Schlesinger, and others in attendance, the President
remarked acidly that the mistakes of the Joint Chiefs were
being notably neglected by the press. IS Nevertheless, as a
political device to shut off the continuing criticism, Kennedy
decided to accept sole responsibility, and he did so publicly.
By taking the full blame upon himself, wrote Sorensen, Ken
nedy won "the admiration of both career servants and the
public, avoiding partisan investigations and attacks, and dis
couraging further attempts by those involved to leak their
versions and accusations." 14
But the President did not privately concede that he was re
sponsible. He blamed the CIA and the Joint Chiefs, not his
political advisers or himself. Schlesinger quotes him as saying,
"My God, the bunch of advisers we inherited. . . . Can you
imagine being President and leaving behind someone like all
those people there?" 15 and "The President said that he could
not understand how men like Dulles and Bissell, so intelligent
and so experienced, could have been so wrong...." 16 Sorensen
adds to the lore of alibis with this Kennedy quotatIOn: "All
my life I have known better than to depend on the experts.
How could I have been so stupid, to let them go ahead?" 11
Arthur Krock, the respected journalist, provides some clues
to the President's attitude. Krock had been a close and long
time friend of the Kennedy family. As an undergraduate at
Harvard, Kennedy had consulted Krock on his senior thesis,
Why England Slept, which was later published as a book. When
Kennedy went to Washington as a member of the House and
later as a Senator, the two men met frequently. Later, in his
13Schlesinger, p. 289.
14Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965),
p.309.
1$ Schlesinger, p. 295.
U1lbid., p. 290.
17 Sorensen. p. 309.
book, In the Nation: 1932-1966, Krock wrote that Kennedy's
good looks, flashing wit, and mastery of the felicitous phrase
were largely responsible for his rise to the Presidency but that
"they also explain why he was celebrated for some capacities
of leadership he did not possess."
In commenting on Kennedy's handling of Cuba, Krock
wrote, "And, after the debacle of the Bay of Pigs expedition
that his half-in, half-out support had foreordained, he blamed
it on incompetent counsel of the military Chiefs of Staff. Word
went out [from the White House] unofficially that the project
with the same design had been initiated in the Eisenhower
administration. . . . Kennedy's transfer of blame from himself
to the Chiefs of Staff for the Bay of Pigs disaster was leaked to
the press to preserve for him the reputation for resolute leader
ship he had definitely failed to demonstrate in this instance" 18
[my emphasis].
Arthur Krock's appraisal of Kennedy's leadership is inter
esting in the light of a ringing statement that appears in the
book he helped Kennedy write, Why England Slept: "We can
not tell anyone to keep out of our hemisphere unless our arma
ments and the people behind those armaments are prepared
to back up the command, even to the ultimate point of going
to war. . . . If we debate, if we question, if we hesitate, it will
be too late."
The reaction in the Kennedy family was curious. The Presi
dent's father, as I have said, believed the experience had been
beneficial. His brother, the Attorney General, is reported to
have told the President emotionally, "They can't do this to
you-those black-bearded Commies can't do this to you!" 11)
But they did, and nothing can alter the fact that instead of
overthrowing Castro, the invasion failure had tightened his grip
on the country; that instead of protecting the image of the
United States before world opinion, it had subjected the country
18 Arthur Krock. In the Nation: 1932-1966 (New York: McGraw-Hill

Book Company, 1967), pp. 321-325.
19 National Review, May 2, 1967, p. 479.
to worldwide scorn. No one believed the shrill Peking claims
that America was a "paper tiger," but everyone believed that it
behaved like one.
When the debating, questioning and hesitating ended in the
Giron disaster, Herbert L. Matthews made a comment entirely
in character: "Thank the Lord," he wrote, "for the United
States and for Cuba that the invasion of April 17, 1961 failed!"
The Bay of Pigs defeat was wholly self-inflicted in Wash

ington. Kennedy told the truth when he publicly accepted re
sponsibility. He had turned from the old, conservative pros
the CIA and the military-to the new political liberal overseers
he had brought into the government. They were the ones who
knocked out the battle plan. He had ignored the professionals,
assuming that they could not accomplish a simple task for which
a life-time of experience had qualified them.
The heroism of the beleaguered Cuban Brigade had been

rewarded by betrayal, defeat, death for many of them, long
and cruel imprisonment for the rest. The Cuban people and
the Latin American nations, bound to Cuba by thousands of
subtle ties of race and culture,were left with feelings of aston
ishment and disillusionment, and in many cases despair. They
had always admired the United States as strong, rich, generous
-but where was its sense of honor and the capacity of its
leaders?
The mistake of the Cuban fighters for liberation was that
they thought too highly of the United States. They believed to
the end that it would not let them down. But it did, and the
Communist threat in the American hemisphere could now be
dated "Before Gir6n" and "After Giron."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lives for Sale
In 1797 Napoleon called on the United States for a large gift

to France, to be disguised as a loan. The American Minister to
Paris at the time, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, refused, with an
assertion of principle that became a patriotic slogan: "Millions
for defense, but not one cent for tribute!"
A few years later Thomas Jefferson sent a small naval force
"to the shores of Tripoli," as the Marine hymn has it, to put an
end to another form of tribute. The Barbary Coast pirates were
demanding money from nations whose ships sailed the nearby
waters. President Jefferson believed that fighting the pirates
would be more honorable and less expensive than bribing them.
In 1961-1962 President Kennedy decided to buy off Fidel
Castro. In the course of the prolonged bargaining the American
people were misled and deceived, as were some of those Ameri
cans called on to participate in the pay-off. The negotiations
and fund-raising processes, moreover, were so confused and at
times inept that the ordeal of more than a thousand Cuban
prisoners was protracted to nearly twenty months.
It all started with a speech by Castro on May 17, 1961,

exactly one month after the invasion. He demanded tribute:
"an indemnity for partial damage caused to the nation by the
invasion," in the form of five hundred bulldozers of the "Cater
pillar type, not with rubber tires, no." In return for these, he
he promised that the Bay of Pigs captives would be released.
This offer set in motion forces whose strange cross-currents
caused the United States to pay more than twice what Castro
originally demanded. He asked for tractors worth $28 million 1
and ended up getting goods which had an ultimate cost of $55.9
million, not counting shipping costs,2 plus almost $3 million in
cash.
Two days after Castro called for the ransom, President Ken
nedy telephoned Dr. Milton Eisenhower. He explained that
Castro was sending to the United States a delegation of 10
prisoners, selected from among the 1,199 members of Brigade
2506 captured at the Bay of Pigs, and asked whether Dr. Eisen
hower would serve on a committee to deal with them. While the
United States felt a moral obligation to obtain the release of
the prisoners, the President said, the government could not deal
with the Cubans directly because diplomatic relations had been
severed. To get around this technicality he proposed the forma
tion of a committee of private citizens to raise money to buy
the tractors. Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Walter Reuther
had agreed to serve and the President hoped Dr. Eisenhower and
another Republican would also serve, to make the committee
bipartisan. The fourth member would be Joseph Dodge, former
Director of the Bureau of the Budget in the Eisenhower Ad
ministration. 3
President Kennedy told Dr. Eisenhower that he would ex
plain publicly the next day that the decision to negotiate with
Castro was governmental and the committee's only responsibil
ity was to raise the funds. This was never done.
Criticism of the proposed negotiations arose immediately
after the committee's formation was announced. On May 22,
Senator Homer Capehart said he thought that the negotiations
would be illegal unless "directly authorized by the President."
1 Haynes Johnson, The Bay Qf Pigs (New York: W. W. Norton &

Company, Inc., 1964), p. 242.
2 Milton S. Eisenhower, The Wine Is Bitter (New York: Doubleday _
and Company, Inc., 1963), p. 296.
S Ibid., pp. 274-277.
LIVES FOR SALE 315
And if he did authorize them, the Senator declared, it would
constitute "an unforgivable sin," adding that "we will become
the laughing stock of the entire world."" Senator Styles Bridges
said, "How much more humiliation and disdain must be taken
from the Communist dictator?" 5 Senator Barry Goldwater said
that if the United States sent tractors to Castro, American pres
tige "would sink even lower." 6 Senator George E. Smathers
compared Castro's offer to "the cold offer of one million Jews
in return for 10,000 trucks which Adolph Eichmann made 16
years ago. . . ." 7 Doubtless it was the barrage of such criticism
that led the President to back away from his promise to Dr.
Eisenhower to tell the American people that the decision to
negotiate with Castro was the government's.
Castro consistently adhered to his original position. In suc
ceeding statements he continued to demand five hundred bull
dozers, Caterpillar type, and he repeated that he was seeking
"indemnification" for wrongs committed by the United States.
When the State Department issued a release to the effect that
"the United States would give its most attentive consideration
to the issuance of appropriate permits for the export of bull
dozers for Cuba, for the rescue of the prisoners," Castro was
furious. He resented having the negotiations interpreted as an
exchange instead of as an indemnification.
The committee itself was divided. The two Republicans, Dr.
Eisenhower and Mr. Dodge, felt that private citizens should not
meddle in foreign affairs without explicit government authori
zation. 8 They feared that it would be a violation of the Logan
Act, which forbids private negotiations with foreign govern
ments. Eleanor Roosevelt and Walter Reuther had no such
qualms. They were willing to go along with the white lie that
all phases of the negotiations were private. At one point Mrs.
"Johnson, p. 232.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., p. 233.
7 Eisenhower, p. 277.
'Ibid., p. 276.
Roosevelt went so far as to say that the committee had been
functioning before Mr. Kennedy became involved. 9
The committee met for the first time on Monday, May 22.
Mrs. Roosevelt was named Honorary Chairman. The twenty
nine-year-old Richard Goodwin, the President's principal ad
viser on Latin America, was present and assured the committee
that the Treasury would arrange for tax exemptions on gifts,IO
and for transportation of the prisoners when they were liber
ated. At 1 P.M. ten prisoners arrived at the Statler Hilton
Hotel in Washington to meet with the committee. Their spokes
man made it clear that Castro expected five hundred bulldozers,
Caterpillar type, and that he was irritated by the use of such
words as "trade" and "exchange," because he was demanding
"indemnification." The prisoners were given a letter stating that
the committee would undertake to raise funds for five hundred
agricultural tractors. It also offered to send a committee of
agricultural experts to Havana to work out the details, and it
reported this to Castro by cable.
On Wednesday, May 24, the President finally issued a state
ment. It said the government was not and could not be a party
to the negotiations, adding, "But when private citizens seek to
alleviate suffering in other lands-this government must not
interfere with their humanitarian efforts." The government, he
said, was "putting forward neither obstacles nor assistance to
the wholly private effort." Any contribution would be wholly tax
deductible, he explained, as for any charitable organization.
Dr. Eisenhower later wrote: "I now realized, in chilling clar
ity, that the President intended to maintain the fiction that all
aspects of the case, from negotiation to critical decisions, from
raising funds to actually freeing the citizens, were private."
The "vitriolic and unrelenting criticism" continued and on
June 2, in an effort to placate its critics, the committee cabled
Castro that it was willing to make available 500 farm tractors
IIlbld., p. 284.
10 Ibid., p. 277.
LIVES FOR SALE 317

ll
worth about 3 million dollars. It set a time limit-12 o'clock
noon on June 7-"so that we may know that you are prepared
to carry out the proposal you made on May 17, 1961."12 It
offered to send an agricultural delegation to Havana.
Castro replied on June 6. His position remained consistent
with his original offer. He said that the committee knew exactly
the amount and type of indemnification being claimed, since it
had received precise information from the delegation of prison
ers. He had suggested that Mrs. Roosevelt or Dr. Eisenhower
come to Cuba, but agreed, nevertheless, to meet with the agri
cultural experts, who arrived in Havana on June 13. Out of
their conversations came the suggestion from Castro that if the
committee could not meet his demands for five hundred bull
dozers ("big tractors"), he would accept the equivalent in cash
and credits. If it were to be cash only, he placed a value of
twenty-eight million dollars on the five hundred bulldozers. The
experts returned to the United States on June 15.
In the meantime, Congressional opposition increased. "We
were beset by ridicule and misunderstanding of our motives,"
Dr. Eisenhower would write. "My frustration ... was almost
overwhelming." Mortimer M. Caplin, Commissioner of the
Bureau of Internal Revenue, indicated that he had issued no
ruling on tax exemptions and that he would probably consult
Congress before reaching a decision.
Dr. Eisenhower then wrote President Kennedy what he him
self has called "the bitterest letter I have ever written." The
public should have been told from the first and "should even
now be told ... that only the fund-raising was private," and
that the rest of the transaction, involving foreign policy deci
sions, was governmental. He was opposed to continuing the ne
gotiations. Reuther wanted to continue.
The mail to Senators and Representatives was running at
least four-to-one against the deal. Dr. Eisenhower's office esti
ll1bid., p. 290.
12 Johnson, p. 238.

mated that only one letter in ten had a good word to say about
the committee's efforts. He described the first three weeks of
his work as "a virtual nightmare." He and Dodge began to
wonder if the committee could raise even three million dollars.
Governor Paul Fannin of Arizona expressed the hope that the
people of his state would "not contribute a dime."
As for Castro's position, Dr. Eisenhower described it in this
way: "We had found ourselves in verbal combat with a most
unscrupulous rascal, adept at dirty tricks and in-fighting. Castro
responded to our genuine expressions of humanitarian concern
with nothing but ranting lies and deceitful propaganda. . . . It
soon became clear, to me at least, that Castro would not nego
tiate in good faith."
On June 23 Castro cabled a rejection of the offer of farm
tractors : "Your committee lies when it states that Cuba has
changed its original proposal. . . ." In this he was on solid
ground. In his speech on May 17, and in all subsequent state
ments, he had made it clear that his proposal was based on an
admission of responsibility by the United States and that he
would accept only Caterpillar-type bulldozers. When the com
mittee dissolved itself in late June, President Kennedy placed
the entire blame on Castro. At a press conference he said, "The
committee did everything conceivable for the purpose of show
ing its good faith, but Mr. Castro has not accepted."
The prisoners could have been released in June of 1961 for
$28 million in tractors or in cash and credit. But they were
doomed to another year and a half in prison, and in the end the
ransom price was more than doubled.
What of the ordeal of the 1,199 survivors of Brigade 2506

who had been literally abandoned by the United States and per
mitted to run out of ammunition on the beaches?
Following the collapse of the invasion they were first taken to
the recently constructed Sports Palace in the center of Havana.
There they remained for several weeks, some of them wounded, .
all covered with the dirt and mud of battle. They were not per
LIVES FOR SALE 3.,
mitted to bathe or shave. For twenty-one hours a day they were
forced to sit on small chairs; from 3 A.M. to 6 A.M. they were
permitted to lie on the floor. Their captors played on their bit
terness at having been betrayed and abandoned. All the pris
oners were certain they faced execution.
During these weeks Castro arranged to put a group of care
fully selected prisoners before a panel on a nationally broad
cast TV program. Carmen and I watched the cruel exhibition
while we were at the Italian Embassy. The performance con
tinued for four nights. Some of the thirty-seven who appeared,
in a state of exhaustion, testified as Castro wished-but not all
of them. "If you have so many people on your side, why don't
you hold elections?" one prisoner asked an interrogator. When
another was asked why he joined the Brigade he replied, "Be
cause I want in my country the restoration of the 1940 Consti
tution, with a democratic government, a free press, and elec
tions." Thirty underground Cuban activists were with us in the
Italian Embassy; we all applauded, and some cheered the cour
age of these men.
The most memorable performance was that of Felipe Rivero,
a thirty-seven-year-old prisoner, a member of a wealthy and
aristocratic family. When privately questioned beforehand he
had deliberately feigned cowardice in order to qualify for the
TV appearance. During his long interrogation on the air, each
of the ten panel members tried to get Rivero to admit that the
Brigade was composed of mercenaries, American lackeys, men
from wealthy families, and murderers. "If you think I am go
ing to attack my comrades because I am on the point of being
shot," he said, "you are wrong." There were many laborers in
the Brigade, Rivero said, and all of its members had been
guided by patriotic ideals. "You will understand that at this
moment the most that I can feel about being executed is sad
ness for my family, but it is not a thing that makes me afraid
or terrifies me." After his eventual release Rivero was arrested
and imprisoned in the United States for anti-Castro activities!
The big show at the Sports Palace came on April 26 when
Castro, standing in the center of the amphitheater, gloated over
the humiliation of his defeated enemies and stressed the duplicity
of the United States, which, he said, had trained them for a
year and then abandoned them on the beaches.
One of the prisoners asked, "Dr. Castro, are you a Commu~
nist?" and Castro turned away without answering. Speaking of
the liberties Negroes enjoyed under his regime, he said that they
were even permitted to go swimming in private pools with white
men. He singled out one of the prisoners: "You, Negro, what
are you doing here?" The prisoner replied quietly that he had
no complex about his race. "I have always been among white
people, and I have always been a brother to them. And I did
not come here to go swimming."
The treatment of the prisoners varied in accordance with the
vicissitudes of the ransom negotiations. Four days before Cas~
tro's first offer to release them in exchange for bulldozers, the
men were transferred at night to an uncompleted Naval Hos~
pital, where they slept twenty in a room on the floor and were
given soap, a tremendous improvement. But on July 17, a few
days after the Tractors for Freedom Committee dissolved, they
were moved again, at night, to the Castillo del Principe, a Span~
ish fortification completed in 1794. Here they were to spend
eighteen months.
The Brigade leaders were at first taken to the worst cells,
deep in the prison, damp and dark and infested with rats and
cockroaches. Above them, in the upper galleries, common crim~
inals and mental cases were confined. The toilet was an uncov
ered hole in the middle of the floor. Later the leaders were
transferred to four large cells, known as the leoneras (lion
dens), where four hundred Brigade prisoners were crowded in.
There was one hole in the floor for each hundred men. Hepa
titis and dysentery swept the Brigade. Five prisoners were exe
cuted, nine sent to the infamous Isle of Pines prison with thirty
year sentences. Several became mental cases; one attempted sui
cide. But out of their degradation came an even deeper hatred .
for Castro and Communism.
LIVES FOR SALE 3:11
The harshest treatment was reserved for Manuel Artime, the
only one in the Brigade who had dealt with the Americans in
preparing the invasion. He had been captured after fourteen
days in the swamps, his mouth so swollen that he could not talk.
"You are the son-of-a-bitch who caused us the most trouble,"
he was told. He could die in two ways, slowly and miserably or,
if he cooperated with his captors, with a bullet "but like a
hero."
He was taken to a room where he was strapped into a chair,
with his hands tied behind him. Spotlights were turned on his
face so that he could not see his interrogators. He was ques
tioned for three days without sleep. When he lost consciousness
ice water was dashed in his face. He remembers two voices,
one gentle and the other loud and harsh. Twice he was told he
was about to be shot. A pistol muzzle was placed in his mouth,
the second time against his temple. Artime kept repeating that
he did not know anything and would not sign anything.
Finally it ended. When Artime regained consciousness he
was lying on the fioor, untied. Someone kicked his shoulder.
"Get up, you son-of-a-bitch, we are going to take you to the
laguito." This was a small lake, about four blocks from our
home in Country Club Park, where my friend Pelayo Cuervo
had been murdered and dumped beside the road. In the car he
was offered "a last chance." A gun was put against his head
and he was told that at the count of four he would be shot.
When he repeated that he didn't know anything, the gun was put
away, and Artime was taken to the Sports Palace and left alone
in a cell.
On March 22, 1962, when they had been in captivity almost
a year, the Cuban Government announced that the prisoners
would be tried as war criminals. It was the only such mass trial
in Cuban history. It began on a Thursday morning, March 29.
The men were brought into the courtyard of Principe Castle
Prison and seated there, facing a five-man tribunal presided
over by Augusto Martinez Sanchez, the Minister of Labor, one
of Castro's top-ranking officials. (Later, on December 8, 1964,
MartInez Sanchez would shoot himself after having been dis
missed from office.)
The government expected that the trial would provide a
propaganda extravaganza, with the prisoners denouncing the
United States, and television cameras were installed to record
the event. The prisoners decided among themselves, however,
that they would refuse to answer questions. Their honor had
been assailed; they had been called cowards and mercenaries.
Their situation was hopeless in any case, they believed, and
they chose to die like men of honor.
The trial started when a witness stood at a microphone in
front of the prisoners and began berating the Brigade. The "yel
low worms" had behaved like cowards in the fighting in April,
he said, and now they were trying to pretend they were brave .
.He singled out the Brigade commander, Jose Perez San Roman,
charging that he was so cowardly that when captured he had
signed several papers and documents. The witness then read
slowly from a statement assailing the United States; he claimed
San Roman had written it to Castro. When he finished, Mar
tinez Sanchez called San Roman to come forward. He was
asked what he had to say.
"In the name of all the Brigade," San Roman stated, "I
refuse to accept the defense counsel who has been imposed on
us by the government. We don't want anyone to defend us. We
don't need any defense." He was asked what he had to say
about his letter to Castro. "I did not write that letter," said
San Roman. "It is a good falsification, but it is not mine."
At the end of the first day the government announced that
the prisoners had "confessed their crimes." On the second day
another of the Brigade leaders was shown a typewritten state
ment alleged to have been made by him, denouncing the United
States. It said that he now repented but that at the time of the
invasion they had been puppets of the United States. When the
witness had finished reading the statement the leader exclaimed,
"This is a complete lie!" Laughter and catcalls, directed against
the judges, came from the ranks of the Brigade.
LIVES FOR SALE
Other prisoners were confronted with statements that they
were alleged to have made, and all but two denied them. One
of the two referred bitterly to the Tractors for Freedom Com~
mittee negotiations. He admitted that the United States ha4
trained the Brigade in Guatemala and then landed them in
Cuba, but he added that he could never support Communism
and that he was an enemy of the regime. The second man,
who was regarded within the Brigade as a Judas, blamed the
United States for everything that had happened.
The conduct of the prisoners throughout the trial was mag~
nificent. They had not only fought bravely in combat but now,
with only two exceptions, they refused to criticize the Unite4
States!
When news of the mass trial was reported in Miami, a

brother of San Roman, one of the Brigade members who had
escaped, collected five hundred dollars from Cubans and weBt
to Washington with two other members of the Brigade to see
Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who assured them, "We
are going to do everything we can." While the trial was under
way the State Department urged Latin American embassies te
appeal to Castro to spare the lives of the men. Several coun
tries complied, among them Brazil.
Cuban exiles meanwhile had organized a "Cuban Families
Committee," which. hoped to raise the twenty-eight millioR
dollars that Castro had demanded. The most active participant
was Alvaro Sanchez, Jr., who later became the most active
Cuban negotiator. On April 7, with four other committee mem
bers, Sanchez cabled Castro that the committee was in a posi
tion to negotiate. Sanchez had been told by a representative of
the State Department that he could count on twenty-eight mil
lion dollars in foodstuffs.
During the night of Sunday, April 8, Castro visited the pris
oners and spoke to one of the leaders. He had come to aII
nounce the tribunal's verdict, namely that the prisoners were
guilty but that the Revolution had spared their lives and sell
3Z4 DAGGER IN THE HEART
tenced them to thirty-year prison terms. Because they were so
valuable to the Yankees, however, he was asking a ransom of
$500,000 each for the three leaders. The rest of the Brigade
would be divided into three groups; in the first, each man's
freedom could be bought for $25,000; in the second $50,000;
and in the third group, $100,000. The total ransom price was
thus $62 million, $6 million more than twice what he had first
demanded. Later that day Castro announced the verdict pub
licly and cabled Alvaro Sanchez, authorizing him to come to
Cuba and begin negotiations.
Sanchez and three other members of the committee arrived
in Havana on April 10, 1962, and shortly thereafter met with
Castro, who began by reviewing the negotiations from the time
of his original proposal on May 17, 1961, when he had asked
for 500 bulldozers and then had agreed to equipment of equal
value. "The Americans offered me five hundred ridiculous toy
tractors worth a little over three million dollars," he scoffed.
"As a result, eleven months have gone by." He said he would
permit the most seriously wounded prisoners to go back to the
United States when the committee had deposited their ransom,
totalling $2,925,000, in the Royal Bank of Canada.
On April 18, 1962, members of the Cuban Families Com
mittee met with Robert Kennedy, who said that it was going to
be difficult to raise the ransom, because the government could
not contribute money that would go to Castro. IS He advised
the Cubans to organize an aggressive fund-raising campaign
and to obtain the services of a professional organization. And
he suggested that they try to get Castro to accept food and
medicine instead of cash. He also recommended that they try
to form a committee of prominent citizens. The Cuban Fami
lies Committee opened an office at 527 Madison Avenue, New
York City, and went to work. Its members wrote countless let
ters and made endless solicitations. On April 21 they got an
IS/bid., p. 291.
LIVES FOR SALE 325
excellent publicity break when Ed Sullivan interviewed several
of the prisoners on his TV show. But during the eight months
that the committee worked, it was unable to raise even a half
million dollars.
Sanchez went back to see the Attorney General, who sug
gested that they get in touch with James Donovan, a lawyer
who had become a public figure in 1957 when he defended
Rudolph Abel, indicted as a top Soviet espionage agent in the
United States. Later, in 1962, Donovan was chosen by the
United States to negotiate the exchange in West Berlin of Abel
for the U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Donovan agreed to
represent the committee without payment.
On June 26 the Families Committee announced a list of
fifty-two sponsors, men and women prominent in the arts, busi
ness, education, labor, and religion. Among them were Prin
cess Lee Radziwill, Jacqueline Kennedy's sister; Richard Cardi
nal Cushing, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston; the Right
Rev. James A. Pike, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of California;
James A. Fadey; and General Lucius D. Clay. A day or two
later a reporter asked President Kennedy at a press conference
whether he approved of public subscriptions for ransoming the
prisoners. He replied: "I certainly sympathize with the basic
desire, which is to get a good many hundreds of young men
out of prison whose only interest was in freeing their country."
Donovan, meeting with Robert Kennedy for the first time on
July 2 at the Justice Department, was assured that the mission
was in the national interest and that any negotiations wih Cas
tro would not be a violation of the Logan Act.
On August 30, Donovan, Sanchez, and another Cuban, Dr.
Ernesto Freyre, flew to Havana. That same day Donovan met
with the Attorney General of the Cuban Government. Donovan
conceded from the outset that the planned action would be an
"indemnification." The next day, accompanied by the two
Cubans, he met with Castro. The Cuban tribunal had imposed
a ransom of $62 million in cash. Donovan had to persuade
Castro to agree to accept the ransom in some other form. 14
After four hours Castro agreed to give consideration to three
main proposals: 1) The negotiations would be independent of
the earlier negotiation with the Cuban Families Committee
when a cash indemnification of $2,925,000 had been pledged
for the freedom of 60 wounded prisoners; 2) the payment for
the remaining prisoners would be accepted in food products
and medicines; 3) the value of these products in the world mar
ket would be equal to the indemnification imposed when the
prisoners were sentenced. Iii
The following day there was another meeting with Castro,
who agreed to the three proposals and said that his government
would prepare a list of acceptable products. The next day Don
ovan returned to the United States. Shortly thereafter, the Cu
bans, who had remained in Havana, received a list of food
products and were told that a list of medical products would
follow. It was estimated that at least thirty ships would be re
quired to transport the goods to Cuba. Later, in the United
States, this estimate was increased to sixty-eight ships.
At this time Donovan accepted the Democratic nomination
to oppose incumbent Jacob Javits for the U.S. Senate. He
returned to Havana on October 3, and met with Castro the
following day at Varadero.
As though dictating terms to a defeated country, Castro in
formed Donovan that he would take drugs and medicine in
place of food but that he wanted them at wholesale prices. He
demanded banking guarantees to assure the payment of the
ransom, two letters of credit with the Royal Bank of Canada,
one covering the $2,925,000 for the 60 wounded prisoners and
the other covering drugs and medicines. Donovan told Castro
he would receive drugs, medicines and surgical equipment at a
60 percent discount: that the insurance, packing, and trans
portation charges would be borne by the Families Committee;
14Ibid., p. 312.
Ill/bid., p. 313.
UVES FOR SALE 327

that baby food would be included in the shipment; and that the
banking arrangements would guarantee completion of payment
in six to nine months. As an indication of good faith, a first ship..
ment of 20 percent of the total goods would be made immedi
ately by air before any prisoners were released. 16
But even these concessions did not satisfy the Cuban dicta
tor. He complained that the wholesale prices published in the
catalogues of the drug companies were too high and insisted
that they be reduced by 35 percent. To back up his demand
he showed list prices from Japan, Poland, and Italy, prices that
were lower on the world market than those of the United States.
At this point the Missile Crisis of October 1962 occurred,

but the negotiations were held open.
Toward the end of November a meeting at the Waldorf

Astoria in New York, attended by Robert Kennedy and repre
sentatives of the Cuban Families Committee, set in motion a
series of interdepartmental activities in Washington of a nature
and scope without historical precedent. The Justice Department
became the nerve center and command post for "Project X,"
the ransom operation. Robert Kennedy instructed A&J;istant At
torney General Louis F. Oberdorfer to devote his full time to it.
Additional desks and telephones were installed in his office.
Private attorneys were brought in to assist Justice Department
lawyers. During December more than 344 long-distance calls
were placed; 42 trips were made between Washington, New
York, and Florida; and nearly 900 hours of overtime were re
corded.
At the offices of the Internal Revenue Service a staff of
twelve was set up to be on -continuous call to answer questions
and issue rulings in connection with Project X.
On November 30, 1962, an important high-level meeting
took place at the Justice Department, attended by officials of
I.,bid., pp. 316-317.

the State Department, the CIA, and the Internal Revenue Ser
vice, as well as by top Justice Department aides to the Attorney
General. It was agreed that a study of the tax angles involved
should be made and a memorandum prepared for submission to
Robert Kennedy on Monday, December 3. It was realized that
some drug companies might gain a tax "windfall" by making
charitable contributions and that they would demand maximum
protection from legislative and public criticism; moreover, they
would object to having price mark-ups exposed in the trans
aCtion. 11
, Armed with the memorandum, Robert Kennedy called on
the President and before noon on Monday received the green
light to proceed. The next day he met with Donovan in Wash
ington. To forestall public criticism, the Red Cross was called
in and asked to serve as a cover, permitting the operation to be
conducted in its name. In actuality, of course, all major plans
and decisions were made in the Justice Department.
Now it became necessary to approach the drug and food
companies, and this posed a delicate and embarrassing problem
for the Kennedy brothers, whose relationships with big business
were anything but cordial.
Earlier in 1962, when the steel industry announced an in
crease in prices, President Kennedy had made a remark in pri
vate which somehow reached the press. "My father always told
me," he had said, "that all businessmen were sons-of-bitches,
but I never believed it until now." In an attempt to limit the im
pact of the words, he told a press conference that his father's
comment referred only to steel men. But privately, according to
Arthur Schlesinger, the President told him and Adlai Steven
son, "They are a bunch of bastards-and I'm saying this on
my own now, not just because my father told it to me." 18
Now the President and his brother had to appeal to "the
17 Ibid., pp. 323-324.

LIVES FOR SALE 329
bunch of bastards," to extricate them from one of the conse
quences of the Bay of Pigs blunders. The drug industry in par
ticular felt no love for the Administration, having been hard
hit by a Senate investigation of its high prices.
On December 7, 1962, Robert Kennedy met with officials of
the Pharmaceutical Medical Association. He told them that al
though the Bay of Pigs invasion had been launched under his
brother's orders, the plan had been started during the Eisen
hower Administration. 19 The United States had a moral obliga
tion to get the prisoners out, he said, but could not conduct
negotiations directly with Castro because this would be "mis
understood." The prisoners were in poor condition, and some
of them might soon die. The list of drugs Castro wanted had
been received, and none was considered strategic. Two days
later he gave the same talk to a group of baby food manufac
turers.
Castro had prepared a 327-page list (typed and single
spaced), specifying the brand name, manufacturer, quality and
dollar value of each item demanded. Favorable tax and anti
trust rulings were issued. All gifts were not only tax deductible
but had a two-year carry-forward credit. 20 The Commerce De
partment issued drug and food export licenses. The Immigration
service, the CIA and the Air Force began arranging to receive
the prisoners in Florida. Clearances were issued by the Civil
Aeronautics Board and the Interstate Commerce Commission to
permit contributions of surface and air transportation to haul
the products to Florida. When some members of Congress ob
jected to dealing with Castro at a time when the United States
was asking other countries to cut off trade with Cuba, the White
House explained that Donovan was acting as a private attorney
on behalf of the Cuban Families Committee, and was merely
19 David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New

20 James B. Donovan, Challenges (New York: Atheneum, 1967).
p.93.
keeping the President informed. It refused to say whether any
government funds would be used. 21
The goal was to obtain the release of the prisoners by Christ
mas, which was less than three weeks off, and of course it would
take several months to deliver the drug-food ransom. Although
the first agreed-upon down payment of 20 percent of the ran
som was "sweetened" by about $500,000 in products, Castro
now demanded a bank guarantee that the balance of his extor
tions would be paid in full. 22 Deputy Attorney General Katzen
bach (later Under Secretary of State) flew to Montreal to ne
gotiate the guarantee with the Royal Bank of Canada, which
insisted on formal guarantees by American banks. Katzenbach
then flew to New York and made these arrangements. The Con
tinental Insurance Company issued a $53 million performance
bond.
On December 21 Donovan and Castro signed a Memoran
dum of Agreement in Havana, but Castro made further condi
tions. He wanted his own people to inspect the drugs, and three
Cuban Red Cross officials were secretly flown to Miami for the
purpose. Every precaution was taken to keep the press from
becoming aware of their presence.
But Castro was still not satisfied! After four plane-loads of
prisoners had landed in Florida on Sunday, December 23, he
demanded payment by 3 P.M. Monday, December 24, of the
$2,925,000 that had been pledged as ransom for 60 wounded
prisoners released the previous April. 23 Robert Kennedy was
contacted at 5 A.M. that day. The Attorney General called
Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, and obtained
a pledge of $1 million. He then called General Lucius Clay, who
borrowed the remaining $1,925,000 on his own signature. Cas
tro insisted on proof that the cash had been deposited in Mon
treal, and he was finally given this assurance late in the after
21Wise and Ross, p. 280.
22 Johnson, pp. 328, 329, 332.
231bid., pp. 338, 339.
LIVES FOR SALE 331

noon at the Canadian Consul's office. 24
Every Castro demand
had been met, and on Christmas Eve, 1962, the last of the
Cuban prisoners touched down in Florida.
A transaction of such proportions could not be entirely hid

den, but some aspects which were particularly vulnerable politi
cally were carefully concealed. One was any direct contribution
by the U.S. Government. Thus, beginning a few days after the
prisoner release, when the Department of Agriculture began
delivering dried milk and shortening to the Red Cross for ship
ment to Cuba, a cover was needed. Eventually Agriculture con
tributed thirty-five million pounds of surplus food to the pris
oner ransom-fifteen million pounds of dried milk and twenty
million pounds of shortening.
The dried milk and shortening cost the government $5,655,
00021l when it was bought from producers under the farm price
support program, and the government normally uses the price
paid producers when it calculates the value of surplus food
contributions to charity. In this case, however, seeking to mini
mize the donation to Castro, it figured its contribution at
slightly less than $2 million, the price the milk and shortening
might have brought in the world market.
Furthermore, the Agriculture Department announced on J an
uary 8, 1963, that "the Red Cross had indicated that the Cu
ban Families Committee expects to raise funds to reimburse
the department." 26 It was saying that the government would
receive cash for the surplus food. The fact is that by then the
Committee had become inactive, with no chance whatsoever of
raising $2 million-over the eight months of its existence, as
already noted, it had not been able to raise even $500,000.
This is the way the matter was finally handled: The Union
Carbide Company had contributed two million dollars worth of
241bid., p. 340.
25 Wise and Ross, p. 286.
26 Ibid., p. 286.

a bug-killer toward the ransom. The Commerce Department
ruled that the insecticide would be of strategic value to Castro
by helping his crops. The Red Cross accepted the insecticide and
turned it over to the Agency for International Development,
which sent it to India, Pakistan, and Algeria, and Agriculture
accepted this as repayment for the milk and shortening. These
were the "funds" that Agriculture had announced would be
raised by the Cuban Families Committee "to reimburse the
department. "
President Kennedy, it will be recalled, had announced on May
24, 1961, that the government was not and could not be a party
to the negotiations, but would not "interfere" with the humani
tarian efforts of private citizens. Actually, at least fourteen
branches of the U.S. Government participated in the ransom.??
It has been conservatively estimated that it cost the govern

ment $29,793,000 to extricate itself from the prisoner dilemma,
including a $20 million tax loss, according to an estimate of
Mitchell Rogovin of the Internal Revenue Service.
The drug and food companies came out well. All their de
mands were met. They were not required to disclose their cost
and mark-up data to secure tax deductions, and in many cases
the tax benefit granted (52 percent of their wholesale prices)
exceeded their production costs, so that the transaction resulted
in a profit. And the drug industry in particular drew satisfaction
from having had the Kennedy brothers come begging for their
cooperation.
Donovan, the experienced lawyer, and Alvaro Sanchez, the
Cuban negotiator, performed admirably. Donovan obtained the
release of more than thirty Americans held in Cuban jails, in
cluding three CIA men. More than five thousand members of
the families of the prisoners were permitted to depart on the Red
Cross ships. When Donovan insisted, as late as June 1963, that
1'1 Ibid.
LIVES FOR SALE 333
he was "a private citizen acting on behalf of the Cuban Families
Committee," he was adhering to the position he had agreed to
take at the outset. The prisoners who survived the Giron debacle
were released and reunited with their families, and for this all
patriotic Cubans are profoundly grateful.
Castro came out far better than he had dared hope at first. The
ransom he exacted was more than twice what he had originally
requested. Among his friends he ridiculed the United States as
it met each of his arrogant demands. In June 1963 all thirteen
Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee
called for an investigation, but the Democrats were in control of
the Committee and nothing happened.
There had been alternatives. On April 20, 1961-three days
after the Giron invasion-President Kennedy asked Richard
Nixon to come to the White House. In answer to the President's
question, "What would you do now in Cuba?" Nixon replied, "I
would find a proper legal cover and go in," and he cited three
legal justifications for such action. He added that if the President
moved affirmatively, he would support him publicly "to the
hilt" and urge all other Republicans to do likewise. 28
What suffered in the ransoming of the Bay of Pigs prisoners
was the prestige of the United States.
18 Richard M. Nixon, "Cuba, Castro and John F. Kennedy," Reader',

DigtMt, November 1964.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Missiles in Cuba
On October 22, 1962 President Kennedy made his celebrated

report to the American people on the Soviet nuclear buildup in
Cuba. My wife and I were in Madrid at the time. We were with
a small group of distinguished Americans that night in the pent
house apartment of our good friends Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth
Crosby, atop the tallest building in the Spanish capital.
Not a word was spoken as we listened to the President tell of
Soviet duplicity that had brought the nations of North and South
America within range of Soviet nuclear missiles. Approvingly
we heard him confront Khrushchev with the damning facts and
tell the world that "in an area well known to have a special and
historical relationship to the United States and the nations of
the Western Hemisphere ... this sudden, clandestine decision to
station strategic weapons for the first time outside Soviet soil,
is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status
quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and
our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either friend or
foe."
One of us made a note of the steps Kennedy said he had
directed to counter the Soviet threat. There was to be a quaran
tine of all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba.
Surveillance of the military buildup in Cuba had been stepped
up, and U.S. armed forces were ready to move if military prep
arations continued. The Soviet Union was put on notice that any
missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western
MISSILES IN CUBA 335
Hemisphere would be considered an attack by the U .S.S.R.,
calling for "a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."
The U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay had been reinforced
and dependents evacuated; the Organization of American States
had been called to consider necessary action; the United Nations
had been asked to call an emergency meeting of the Security
Council; and, finally, the President called on Khrushchev to
"halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative
threat to world peace."
Addressing himself to the people of Cuba, the President said
he and the American people had "watched with deep sorrow
how your nationalist revolution was betrayed-and how your
fatherland fell under foreign domination." He expressed the
hope that in time this would change and that the Cubans would
be "truly free." To his fellow Americans the President addressed
a call for courage. He warned of grave hazards ahead and re
minded them that "the cost of freedom is always high" but said
that Americans had always been willing to pay it.
He ended with this stirring peroration:
"Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of
right; not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and
freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the
world. God willing, that goal will be achieved."
These were brave words (later I learned that the chief author
had been Ted Sorensen), and at the conclusion we remained
silent as we weighed the sobering implications of the message
we had heard. My feeling, I recall, was one of relief. This
sounded like a different John F. Kennedy from the man who
had been responsible for the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs. At last he
seemed to have become aware of the Communist menace in
Cuba and the threat it posed to the hemisphere. He was ap
parently prepared to eliminate the cancer. Certainly the Soviets
had given him a perfect opportunity to do it. One who was not
impressed was Carmen, my wife. "Palabras:' she said, "nada
m6s, you will see."
And as days passed and events unfolded she proved to be
DAGGER IN THE HEART
right. Evidently John F. Kennedy had not changed at all since
the Bay of Pigs. Here again he demonstrated the same lamen
table tendency to vacillate and back away from hard decisions.
Once more he took his guidance from many of those who had
been so profoundly wrong about the Bay of Pigs, the failure of
which had led to the new crisis. Indeed, he operated with almost
the same cast, with the notable exception of Arthur M. Schle
singer, Jr. Once again he adopted a course of action opposed by
his country's best military experts.
The end result of the Missile Crisis was to give Communism a
sanctuary in Cuba, with a guarantee from the President himself
that no attempt would be made to dislodge it. Nor was that all
that was to come from what some have called "Kennedy's finest
hour."
Those who heard Kennedy's historic October 22 speech were
under the impression that the youthful President was bravely
standing up to a nuclear giant capable of inflicting terrible dam
age and loss of life on the United States. This was not the case.
In October 1962 the military power of the United States was in
comparably superior to that of the Soviet Union and, equally
important, both Kennedy and Khrushchev knew this to be a fact.
The advantage of this immense power superiority could have
been lost or lessened if Khrushchev had been in a position to
bluff. He was not in that position. Both men knew that Kennedy
held all the trump cards.
How did Kennedy and Khrushchev acquire information of
such critical importance, and why, knowing the enormous mili
tary imbalance in favor of the United States, did Khrushchev
attempt to mount nuclear missiles in Cuba?
The remarkable story of how the closed society of the Soviet

Union was opened to American intelligence goes back to the
summer of 1954, when one of President Eisenhower's advisory
agencies, the Killian Committee on Surprise Attack, suggested
building a reconnaissance plane of the U-2 type. The recom
mendation brought together a three-star team composed of the
brilliant Kelly Johnson of Lockheed Aviation, E. H. Land of the
Polaroid Company, and Richard M. Bissell, Jr., of the CIA.1
The plane and its phenomenal photographic equipment
proved to be a marvel of design and engineering. It carried so
much scientific paraphernalia that it could not be burdened with
landing gear. It was launched from another plane and landed by
skidding in on a reinforced belly, with the tips of its wings bent
down, like an outrigger canoe. The plane could fly at heights of
almost 14 miles and its cameras, aimed through seven portholes
in the belly, could photograph a strip of earth 125 miles wide
and 3,000 miles long. Less than 1,000 gallons of fuel could carry
it 4,000 miles. The definition of its photographs was amazing. A
newspaper headline photographed at an altitude of eight miles
was legible.
Starting in 1956, and until Francis Gary Powers was shot
down over the Urals on May 1, 1960, the American reconnais
sance planes flew over Russia for four years. 2 They brought
back priceless data on Soviet airfields, aircraft, missiles, missile
testing and training, special weapons storage, submarine pro
duction, atomic production, and aircraft deployment. The inde
pendent U-2 air force was placed under the command of
Richard M. Bissell, Jr., Deputy Director of the CIA.
The success of the plane was so great that it stimulated the
development of the U-3, which has' become the present SR-71,
and of a reconnaissance satellite, and an all-out secret effort to
build such a satellite began. 3 The first of these new orbiting spy
birds was launched in August 1960, only three months after
Powers had been downed and the U-2's had ceased their flights
over Soviet Russia. There was thus only a brief lapse in the
aerial inspection operations. They continued to confirm that
the Soviets had not deployed and mounted intercontinental
1 Joseph Alsop, "A Debt Is Owed," The Hartford Courant, December

26, 1963.
II David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New
S Alsop, "A Debt Is Owed," December 16, 1963.
DAGGER IN THE HEART
ballistic missiles (ICBMs),4 which they were entirely capable of
producing.
By January 1961, the United States had begun putting into
orbits no higher than one hundred to three hundred miles a
whole series of the cigar-shaped reconnaissance satellites known
as the SAMOS, combining the initials of Satellite And Missile
Observation System. The new spy-birds were orbited almost per
pendicular to the equator, which meant that, with the earth's
motion, at least once a day every point on its surface would
come within range of their cameras. While one camera aimed at
the earth below, another was synchronized to shoot the stars
above, so that the picture of the earth could be exactly oriented.
Some of the cameras pointed straight down, others obliquely
forward, to give various views of a target. Still other cameras
swept from side to side, taking panoramic photographs of air
fields or of entire cities.1\
The satellites took pictures only on command from the
ground. Some models carried a television system that permitted
ground operators to take a quick look to determine what areas
required special attention. Closeups with a more powerful lens
could then be ordered for the next orbital pass. The film capsule
could be ejected, also on command from the ground, and para
chuted down to a chosen spot in the Pacific, where planes
equipped with special devices snatched it out of the air. If a
capsule was not picked up within a given time, a plug dissolved
and the capsule sank. The sphere of operation for the U-2 plane
was approximately fifteen miles above the earth. Higher than
that was the domain of the unmanned reconnaissance satellites.
This amazing system permitted the United States to identify
every military installation on earth, and by repeating the picture
coverage, to keep abreast of changes that were taking place.
A basic element of the new science of aerial photography was
4James Burnham, The War We Are In (New York: Arlington House,

1967), p. 21.
5 The New York Times Magazine, "The Camera Keeps Watch on the
World," April 3, 1966, pp. 27. 54.
MISSILES IN CUBA
the training and development by U.S. military services of ex
perts in the interpretation of the remarkable blown-up photo
graphs. For instance, a good photo interpreter could determine
the relative economic status of a family from a photograph
taken by a satellite a hundred miles overhead. He could de
scribe the construction of the house, the relative age of the com
munity, and even see whether it had a telephone system.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis a photograph showed the fin
of a missile protruding from under a canvas cover. The dimen
sions of this fin were calculated in relation to the gauge of a
railroad in the same picture. The canvas-covered object was
thereupon identified as a Soviet intermediate-range ballistic mis
sile (IRBM), since the measurements of the fin matched those
of the fins of an IRBM photographed on the ground during a
May Day parade in Moscow. The measurements of that photo
graph had been determined by relating it to a known yardstick
-the bricks in Red Square. 6 Again, during the Cuban Missile
Crisis, a U-2 picture revealed a very small shadow in a forest,
but another picture taken a few seconds later showed no such
shadow. The conclusion was correctly drawn that the trees were
hiding a missile site's rotating radar antenna.
The great achievement of American aerial reconnaissance
was the confirmation of information the CIA was receiving
through many conventional intelligence sources. One of these,
for example, was Colonel Oleg Penkovskiy, a senior officer of
the Soviet military intelligence and a graduate of the Soviet
staff college and of the Missile Academy. Over a period of years
Penkovskiy furnished priceless information to the West. He
was on the friendliest terms' with the Chief of Soviet military in
telligence and with prominent Soviet generals and political lead
ers. Until his arrest on October 22, 1962, six days before
Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile sites in Cuba,
Penkovskiy reported on the development and testing of Rus
sian missiles. While Khrushchev was threatening the West with
61bid., p. 56.
a shower of missiles, Penkovskiy was able to report that the
big ones were still on the drawing boards. The smaller missiles,
he said, deviated several hundred kilometers in their tests and
in some cases had hit inhabited areas.
"In short, Khrushchev often brags about things we do not
have," he reported. 1 He worried over the possibility that the
West might take Khrushchev's boasts at face value and he urged
the United States to take a firm stand. At the time of the Bay of
Pigs he reported that members of the Soviet General Staff were
all of the opinion that Kennedy had as much right to help the
Cuban patriots as the Soviets had when they "helped" the Hun
garians. This opinion, he said, was also often expressed by ordi
nary citizens on street-cars in Moscow.
Penkovskiy was executed on May 16, 1963. He is reported to
have been betrayed by the British intelligence agent Harold A.
R. (Kim) Philby, who served the Soviets for thirty years. Pen
kovskiy died because he believed in the traditions of the West
ern World.
In the fall of 1961 a decision was reached in Washington to

let the Soviets know that there had been an intelligence break
through. 8 Roswell Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense, was
chosen to handle the assignment. He did so in an address de
livered at Hot Springs, Virginia, on October 21, 1961, a year
before the Missile Crisis. He disclosed that there was in fact a
dramatically wide "missile gap," but that it was in favor of the
United States.
Gilpatric said that the United States possessed six hundred
intercontinental heavy bombers and many more medium bomb
ers that could reach Soviet targets by refueling in flight. In ad
dition, it had "dozens" of intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs) and six Polaris submarines at sea, each carrying six
10leg Penkovskiy, The Penkovskiy Papers (New York: Doubleday

& Company, Inc., 1965), p. 323.
8 Roger HUsman, To Move a Nation (New York: Doubleday & Com·
pany, Inc., 1967), p. 163.
teen missiles. The missiles carried by a single Polaris submarine
had more destructive power than all the bombs dropped by both
sides during World War II. "The total number of our nuclear
delivery vehicles," Gilpatric said, "tactical as well as strategic,
is in the tens of thousands; and, of course, we have mote than
one warhead for each vehicle." (In military jargon the expres
sion "nuclear delivery vehicles" includes aircraft, missiles, sub
marines, and artillery.) Then the Deputy Secretary of Defense
spoke these portentous words: "Their Iron Curtain is not so im
penetrable as to force us to accept at face value the Kremlin's
boasts."
The all-important news that there had been an intelligence
a
breakthrough was conveyed to the Soviets in number of other
ways in the weeks that followed. The United States briefed its
allies and deliberately included countries' that it knew were pen
etrated by Soviet spies. II In this way Soviet intelligence channels
received confirmation of the message openly conveyed by Gil
patric.
A year later, at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the
magnitude of American superiority had increased. Instead of
"dozens" of ICBMs, the United States had almost two hun
dred 10 and there were eight Polaris and more hunter submarines
at sea. Although the Communists never disclose their military
statistics, it is known that the U.S.S.R. was still very weak. Its
incipient ICBM system was a "soft" system, not buried deep in
the ground and protected by steel and concrete, as was that of
the United States. The Soviets had no second-strike capability,
since the United States had virtuatIy aU of the Soviet launching
pads plotted. Khrushchev knew that the United States was
capable of blackening all important Russian military installa
tions and centers of population in two or three hours, while his
own nuclear potential posed no remotely comparable threat to
America.
II Ibid., p. 163.
10 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1963, p. 9.

Why then did the Soviet leader pursue his audacious plan to
mount missiles in Cuba?
The answer is that Khrushchev had long since come to the
conclusion that Kennedy's lack of experience and his tendency
to temporize could be safely exploited. He had noted that the
President had shied away from using any of his great power to
liquidate Castro, though Castro must have been as repugnant to
the Americans as the Nagy regime in Hungary had been to the
Russians. He ,had undoubtedly drawn conclusions from the
manner in which Kennedy had stood aside when the Berlin Wall
was erected and from his less than adroit handling of the situa
tion in Laos, which ended in that unfortunate country's bogus
"neutralization. "
Khrushchev had had an excellent opportunity to appraise
Kennedy personally when they met at the Vienna conference in
June 1961. There the Soviet Chairman prodded and bullied the
American President over the Bay of Pigs failure, and twitted
him for abandoning Brigade 2506 on the beaches without am
munition, supplies or reinforcements, and Kennedy had con
fessed personal responsibility for the failure.
James Reston talked to Kennedy at the American Embassy
in Vienna ten minutes after his meeting with Khrushchev and
found him "shaken and angry." The President said enough to
convince Reston that "Khrushchev had studied the events of the
Bay of Pigs; he would have understood if Kennedy had left
Castro alone or destroyed him; but when Kennedy was rash
. enough to strike at Cuba but not bold enough to finish the job,
Khrushchev decided he was dealing with an inexperienced
young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed. The
Communist decision to put offensive missiles into Cuba was
the final gamble of this assumption." 11
But Reston, then an associate editor and now the executive
editor of The New York Times, goes further. He thinks he has
the answer to the question that puzzles so many Americans
11 The New York Times Magazine, November 15, 1964.

MJMO.RS IN CUBA
how their country became involved in a ground war in Southeast
Asia. In an article published in his newspaper on January 18,
1966, he wrote that Kennedy had told him he thought Khru
shchev had decided that "anyone who was stupid enough to get
involved in that situation [the Bay of Pigs] was immature, and
anyone who didn't see it all the way through was timid and
therefore could be bluffed." According to Reston, Kennedy then
said that it was necessary to take steps to make American power
"credible" to the Russians. Hence the military budget was in
creased, the Rainbow Division was sent to West Germany, and
the war in Vietnam was intensified, "not because the situation
on the ground demanded it in Vietnam" but because Kennedy
"wanted to prove a diplomatic point, not a military point. . . .
That, I think," Mr. Reston adds, "is where we began to get off
the track:."
Another reason for the apparent imprudence of moving So
viet missiles into Cuba was undoubtedly Khrushchev's convic
tion, as he told the poet Robert Frost in Moscow, that the de
mocracies were "too liberal to fight."
In any case, although Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., has described
the President and his brother as making careful decisions "under
the most unimaginable conditions of pressure and panic," 12 it
is clear that there was no reason to make any significant
concessions to the Communists during the October 1962 Missile
Crisis. Nevertheless, during the ten days of the crisis and the
ensuing settlement, President Kennedy backed away from one
position after another; he not only gave the Soviets a guaranteed
sanctuary in Cuba but made other major concessions, as will be
seen.
In tracing the events in the following two chapters, it will be
interesting and significant to observe the sharply different re
actions of the few conservatives who occupied high-level posi
tions, as against the large group of liberals who participated.
The conservatives called for strong action to eliminate the threat
12 The New York Times, May 8, 1968, p. 33.

posed by Khrushchev's nuclear blackmail. The liberals opposed
steps that they felt might provoke or humiliate the Soviets. It
was, in short, a repetition of the Washington scene at the time of
the Bay of Pigs discussions, and the dialogue ended in another
defeat for the United States and in a soul-shattering blow to the
Cuban people.
CHAPTER TWENTY
What Led to the Crisis
The first Soviet arms arrived in Cuba in the early summer of

1960. and by late October Castro was able to boast that he
had a militia of 250,000. equipped with weapons supplied by
the Communist bloc. Early in 1962 there appeared to be a
lull in arms shipments, but they started again in mid-summer.
when American naval reconnaissance planes spotted a steady
stream of ships heading for C~ba from Soviet ports in the Baltic
and Black Seas. 1
Much of this maritime traffic docked at Mariel, a deep water
port on the north coast, thirty-five miles west of Havana. CIA
agents reported that Cubans living near Mariel harbor had
been forced to evacuate their homes and that Soviet sentries
guarded the docks while others unloaded the ships. High fences
were erected to hide these activities, which were carried out at
night, while night convoys moved equipment out to remote
wooded areas, from which the population had also been evacu
ated. 2
In a State Department press briefing on August 24, Roger
Hilsman, in charge of State Department Intelligence, explained
that the Soviet bloc ships streaming into Cuba were carrying
electronic gear and construction equipment that apparently
1 Roger HUsman, To Move a Nation (New York: Doubleday & Com

pany, Inc., 1961), p. 110.
2 Elie Abel, The Missile Crisis (New York: J. B. Lippincott Company,
1966), p. 16. Also Hitsman, p. 165.
DAGGER IN THE HEART
would go into coastal and air defenses. He conceded that three
to five thousand Soviet "technicians" had also arrived but ex
plained that they were not organized into combat units and
were nOf in uniform. He assumed that th(fir function was to
install defensive equipment being imported and to teach the
Cubans how to operate it.:I
During early September Cuban political leaders and anti
Castro groups in the U.S. published paid press announcements
reporting the arrival of Soviet troops and the construction of
missile pads in Cuba.
On September 12 an experienced CIA subagent in Cuba saw
a middle-of-the-night convoy proceeding in a westerly direction
from Mariel. It included exceptionally long trailers carrying
a sixty-foot tubular object concealed by canvas, which he
sketched. Surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles (SAMs) were
only thirty feet long, half the length of the missile that the CIA
agent had seen and reported. ( In quick succession additional
intelligence reports indicated that there were other surface-to
surface missiles in Cuba. A second long-trailer convoy was ob
served heading west by another professional CIA agent on
September 17,5 and three days later a Cuban refugee gave an
accurate and detailed description of construction work under
way at Remedios, in central Cuba, that he had seen a few days
earlier. This clearly seemed to be one of the buildings the Soviets
intended to use for nuclear launching and storage. Concrete in
stallations were required for launching the two-thousand-mile
intermediate-range ballistic missiles (lRBMs), whereas the
thousand-mile medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) could
be fired from vehicles.
In late September another report from a CIA agent told of
Castro's private pilot having boasted that Cuba no longer feared
the United States because it had acquired long-range missiles. 6
3 Hilsman, p. 170.
(Ibid., pp. 174, 186.
'Ibid., p. 175.
6 Ibid., p. 175.
WHAT LED TO THE CRISIS 347

Also, U.S. naval reconnaissance planes spotted Soviet ships
with exceedingly long hatches riding high in the water, indicat
ing a low weight but high volume cargo. These were the vessels
that carried the sixty-foot missiles to Cuba.
The night convoys proceeding over the Cuban roads were
observed by thousands of Cubans, and it was not long before
more information was reaching the United States. Literally
hundreds of Cubans reported to CIA agents in Florida that they
had seen cohetes (missiles) being transported through the coun
tryside during September 1962.7 When these reports appeared
to arouse little interest and no action on the part of the admin
istration, some of the refugees approached well-known Republi
cans, among them Senator Kenneth B. Keating of New York.
By October 2 the CIA knew that eighty-five shiploads had
arrived at Mariel and a few other similarly protected Cuban
ports, that fifteen sites had been prepared for SAMs, and that
about four thousand five hundred Soviet military technicians
were then in Cuba. s Nevertheless, as Roger Hilsman has stated,
"all through late September and early October there was a de
termination [in the government] to move slowly and deliber
ately."
John A. McCone, Director of the CIA, a Republican and a

conservative businessman, had no inclination to move "slowly
and deliberately." He felt certain that the Soviet military build
up in Cuba was the first stage of a plan to introduce offensive
Soviet missiles there, and on August 22, 1962, shortly before
leaving for Seattle to be married, he presented his arguments
to President Kennedy, and also to the Secretary of the Treasury,
Douglas Dillon. 9
McCone's logic was impeccable. He reasoned that the Soviets
would not be so naive as to believe that anti-aircraft missiles
could protect Cuba against an invasion from the United States.
7Ibid., p. 174.
S Ibid., p. 176.
9 Abel, pp. 17, 18.
DAGGER IN THE HEART

The SAMs were being installed, he was certain, to protect some
thing else--offensive missiles trained on the United States. lO
The Soviets had not done this in Poland and Hungary, he
argued, because they did not trust the Poles and Hungarians,
who might have turned them around and used the U.S.S.R. as
their target. But the medium or intermediate range missiles in
-Cuba could not reach the Soviet Union.
President Kennedy was not impressed; he accepted the State
Department view that the Soviets. would never have the audacity
to introduce ballistic missiles into Cuba. Its reasoning was that
they were cautious on nuclear matters, had never positioned
such weapons outside the U.S.S.R., and would certainly not do
so in the Caribbean.
This comforting concept was shattered by Senator Keating
in a series of ten speeches, between August 31 and October 1,
warning the Kennedy administration of the danger of the Soviet
military buildup. On one occasion he said that he had been
able to confirm from completely reliable sources that six inter
mediate range ballistic missile sites were under construction.
This later proved to be correct, except that the six sites then
under construction were for medium-range missiles. The Soviet
plan called for four IRBM sites to be added later.
The administration either denied or ridiculed the Keating
reports, accusing him of peddling refugee rumors. But the pub
lic was becoming alarmed. When Senator Barry Goldwater and
other Republicans began to prod the administration, and con
cerned citizens started questioning its "do nothing" policy, it
fell into a semantic trap. It attempted to make a distinction be
tween "offensive" and "defensive" weapons in Cuba.
The situation was the reverse of what it had been in 1960,
when Kennedy had been the leader of the "outs." Then, he had
hit hard at Richard Nixon for not standing firm in Cuba. "If
you can't stand up to Castro, how can you be expected to stand
up to Khrushchev?" he had asked in an address on October 15,
10 Ibid., p. 18.
1960. "The transformation of Cuba into a Communist base of
operations a few minutes from our coast by jet plane, missile
or submarine . . . is an incredibly dangerous development to
have been permitted by our Republican policy-makers."
By 1962 it was understandable that Kennedy should have
been sensitive about Cuba. Making a campaign speech in New
Haven on October 17, he had been confronted with a sign
calling for "More Courage, Less Profile," and there were many
other symptoms of growing public dissatisfaction with his han
dling of the Cuban situation.
Anxious to refute embarrassing charges of weakness or soft
ness, with the off-year elections only a few weeks away, the
administration used the various channels open to it to reassure
the public that all was well. On October 3, Under Secretary of
State George W. Ball told a Congressional committee that the
equipment arriving in Cuba did not offer offensive capabilities
against the United States. "Our intelligence is very good and
very hard," 11 he said.
Eleven days later, on October 14, McGeorge Bundy appeared
on television, on ABC's Issues and Answers program, and
flatly denied that the Soviets had any offensive weapons in
Cuba. He was questioned about the administration's "defensive"
interpretation of military installations in Cuba. Wasn't it pos
sible that these could be converted into offensive weapons vir
tually overnight? "Well," said Bundy, "I don't myself think
that there is any present-I know there is no present evidence,
and I think there is no present likelihood that the Cubans and
the Cuban government and the Soviet government would in
combination attempt to install a major offensive capability." 12
This was the closest adviser to the President of the United
States speaking! He was the man who had the last word with
the President after all briefings by the CIA and the military
had been completed. Furthermore, he was the key member of
11 Hilsman, p. 176.
12 Ibid., p. 180.

a top-secret committee known as the Special Group, the other
members of which were Secretary of Defense McNamara, Gil
patrie, U. Alexis Johnson (Deputy Under Secretary of State for
-Political Affairs), and McCone. 13 This committee was the hid
den power center of the intelligence community, its existence
known to only a handful of men. It met about once a week to
make crucial decisions too sensitive to be entrusted to the Na
tional Security Council (NSC) or the United States Intelligence
Board (USIB).
On September 19 the USIB had met at the State Department
to review the Soviet arms buildup in Cuba and prepare what be
came known as the "September Estimate." Such Estimates are
statements of what is going to happen in any given area, pro
jected as far as possible into the future. During the twelve days
preceding the September 19 meeting McCone (then in Europe)
cabled his deputy on four occasions stressing the strong indica
tions that the buildup presaged the introduction of offensive
ballistic missiles. And when he learned that the Board neverthe
less had reached the conclusion that the Soviets would not in
troduce offensive missiles in Cuba, he strongly urged in a further
dispatch that it reconsider and reverse its findings.14 The record
of the CIA and of its Director during this critical period is
above reproach.
In brushing aside the CIA warnings, the Kennedy administra
tion relied to a very large extent on assurances it was receiving
from the Kremlin that the Russians meant no harm. On Septem
ber 4 the Soviet Ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobry
nin, had called on Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy with a
message from Khrushchev. The Chairman wanted the message
passed along to the President by his brother and no one else.
It was a promise that the Soviets would create no trouble for
the United States during the election campaign. Robert Ken
nedy at once reported to the President, and the two brothers
13 David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Invisible Government (New.

14 Abel, pp. 23, 24.
WHAT LED TO TIlE CRISIS 351
prepared a public statement that was released the same day.
"There is no evidence," it said, "of any organized combat force
in Cuba from any Soviet bloc country; of military bases pro
vided to Russia; . . . of the presence of offensive ground-to
ground missiles; or of other significant offensive capability,
either in Cuban hands or under Soviet direction and guidance.
Were it to be otherwise the gravest issues would arise." 15
Four days later the Kremlin came through with a new dis
claimer. "There was no need," it said, "for the Soviet Union
to shift its weapons for the repulsion of aggression, for a re
taliatory blow, to any other country, for instance to Cuba."
The official statement said that Soviet nuclear weapons were so
powerful that there was no need for sites beyond the U.S.S.R.
Actually, the Soviets had few if any ICBMs mounted. 16
At his news conference on September 13 President Kennedy
again assured the country that the arms shipments to Cuba "do
not constitute a serious threat to any part of the hemisphere."
If they did, he said, or if Cuba should ever attempt to export
its aggressive purposes, "then this country will do whatever
must be done to protect its own security and that of its allies."
Although the specific U-2 planes involved had always oper
ated under the control of the CIA, their flight schedules were
determined by a small, top-secret group dominated by civilians,
known as the Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance
(COMOR), which usually met in McGeorge Bundy's office at
the White House. 17 Until late August the schedule had called for
two flights a month, but with the discovery of the first SAM in
stallations it was stepped up. The SAMs had a slant range of
twenty-five miles and were therefore effective against high-fly
ing planes. Between August 29 and October 7, seven U-2's were
dispatched over Cuba. In addition to the flight on August 29,
others took place on September 5, 17, 26, and 29, and October
111 Ibid., pp. 19, 20.

16 James Burnham, The War We A.re In (New York: Arlington House.
1967). p. 21.
1'1 Abel. p. 25.
5 and 7. All but the September 5 flight, however, were limited
to the portion of Cuba lying east of Havana. The reason for this
was that COMOR knew that the main activity in deploying the
SAMs was west of Havana, and it feared that a U-2 over that
area might be shot down!
When McCone returned from Europe he was astonished to
find that western Cuba had not been flown over for a full month,
and he reacted immediately, ,recommending that the entire
island be photographed at once, especially the area west of
Havana. This recommendation was made on October 4, but
five days elapsed before COMOR approved the new flight plan.
Then there was a delay of another five days when Secretary Mc
Namara insisted that the U-2 squadron be placed under the jur
isdiction of the Air Force, under his contro1. 18
The CIA very strongly opposed this change, arguing that in
telligence was its business, that it had the trained pilots and the
experience and its own control center. It had controlled the
U-2 squadron since its inception. It made a fervent appeal to the
White House to continue the organizational efficiency of the
U-2 operations. Bundy, however, supported McNamara. Two
regular Air Force majors, Rudolph Anderson, Jr., and Richard
S. Heyser, were then assigned to make a sweep over western
Cuba in a U-2 plane, with which they first had to familiarize
themselves.
The main photographic target was an installation near the
town of San Cristobal, west of Havana, where the CIA had
reports that SAMs had been placed at ,corners of a trapezoidal
pattern similar to missile installations that Gary Powers and
others had photographed in the Soviet Union.
The Anderson-Heyser flight, made on October 14, was un
eventful. No ground fire was encountered, and when their plane
skidded into its landing with the wings folded down at the tips
to prevent ground looping, their film magazines were trans
ferred to a waiting jet that streaked to Washington.
181bid., p. 27.
The developed film showed a clearing in the woods with mis
sile erectors, launchers, and transporters, a-q inside a quadri
lateral pattern of two parallel and two non-parallel sides. A
SAM had been installed at each corner. The pattern was ex
actly similar to missile sites photographed in the Soviet Union. 19
McCone's warning could no longer be ignored. The negative
September Estimate of the United States Intelligence Board
would now have to be discarded, as McCone had urged. Those
who had clung to the theory that the Soviets would not put mis
siles into Cuba now became convinced they had been wrong.
The Kennedy administration finally realized that the Kremlin
had lied. The Missile Crisis was on.
A tragic footnote to the discovery on October 14 by the

Anderson-Heyser team of the first missiles deployed by the
U.S.S.R. in the Western Hemisphere records the death of the
valiant Anderson two weeks later during the Crisis. The group
of Presidential advisers that became known as the ExCom had
decided that if a U-2 were shot down over Cuba, the American
response should be to destroy the responsible SAM site. If a
second U-2 were shot down, all SAM installations in Cuba were
to be destroyed. Khrushchev had informed Kennedy that the
missiles were controlled by Soviet officers, not by Cubans.
"Therefore," he had said, "any accidental use of them whatso
ever to the detriment of the United States is excluded."
At about 10 o'clock on the morning of October 27, Major
Anderson was shot down and killed. Backing away from what
his Executive Committee had decided, Kennedy ordered that
there be no response.
As matters approached a climax, the Soviets continued to

draw a veil of deception over the buildup. On October 13,
Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin assured both Robert Kennedy
and Chester Bowles that the Soviet Union had no offensive
191bid., pp. 28, 29. Also Hilsman, p. 180.

weapons in Cuba. The following day, the very day that the
missile bases were being photographed in Cuba, Khrushchev met
in Moscow with U.S. Ambassador Fay Kohler and assured him
in his most jovial manner that he had nothing but good will for
the United States. He asked the Ambassador to let the Presi
dent know that, with an election coming up, he intended to
cause Kennedy no embarrassment. And on October 18, when
all the evidence was in, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko spent
two hours in the White House giving President Kennedy the
same lying assurances that Khrushchev had given Ambassador
Kohler four days earlier.
The SovieL used maximum duplicity to the end-to achieve
surprise and to obtain maximum gains.
McGeorge Bundy received the news of the missile erectors

spotted by the U-2 flights at 8:30 P.M. on October 15, the very
day after he had stated on national TV that there was no
existing evidence or likelihood that the Soviets would mount
offensive weapons in Cuba. He was the usual channel to the
President, and he decided to inform him the next morning. This
was done at 8 A.M., and Kennedy instructed Bundy to call a
meeting for 11 :45 that morning, giving him the names of the
men he wanted present: Vice President Johnson; Secretary of
State Rusk; McNamara; Robert Kennedy; Gen. Maxwell Tay
lor; Gen. Marshall S. Carter (McCone's deputy, since the CIA
Director was out of town); Roswell Gilpatric; George Ball;
Edwin Martin, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American
Affairs; Sorensen; Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury;
Charles Bohlen, who had just been appointed Ambassador to
France; Kenneth O'Donnell, the President's appointments sec
retary; and Bundy himself. This was the group, with a few ad
ditions, that later became known as the Executive Committee of
the National Security Council (ExCom). Among the notable
omissions were Hilsman, Schlesinger, and Adlai Stevenson, al
though the latter was destined to attend some of the meetings.
Stevenson had arrived in Washington from New York that
morning, and he first heard about the missiles that afternoon
from Kennedy himself. He was alarmed when Kennedy men
tioned that an air strike had been suggested, and urged caution.
The best course, he felt, was to go to the United Nations. 20 Dean
Acheson later joined the group at the President's request, and
since Bohlen was about to leave for his new post in Paris,
Llewellyn Thompson, who had just returned from Moscow, took
his place. When McCone returned to Washington from the West
Coast, where he had been summoned because of a death in his
family, he joined the group, as did Paul Nitze, an Assistant
Secretary of Defense.
The "hardliners" in the ExCom included McCone, Dillon,
the few military men who were consulted, and, curiously, Ache
son. The leaders of the liberal group advocating caution were
McNamara, Robert Kennedy, Bundy, Ball and Gilpatric. As
the conversations developed during various meetings held on
each of the succeeding days, five major plans emerged, each
with several variants. One was to take out the missiles with a
swift military strike; the second was invasion by sea and air;
the third was blockade; the fourth was to move through diplo
matic and political channels, preferably the United Nations.
The fifth was to do nothing at all.
The President telephoned a Republican friend in New York,
John J. McCloy, who had served under various Democratic
presidents. McCloy, who was about to leave ona business trip
to Europe, recommended drastic action. 21
With one exception, everyone realized that to do nothing
about the missiles in Cuba would be by far the most dangerous
course. The one dissenter, amazingly, was the Secretary of De
fense. In spite of intelligence reports, fully confirmed by the
American reconnaissance satellites, that the Soviets had little
capability of launching a missile attack from Soviet soil, Mc
Namara argued that they already possessed ICBMs and that
20 Abel, p. 49.
21 Ibid., p. 45.
356 DAGGER IN DIE HEART

whatever happened in Cuba they would go on building more.
The only military effect of the missiles in Cuba, he argued,
would be to reduce America's warning time. He dismissed the
idea that the Russians had sneaked missiles into Cuba in order
to close the missile gap. "A missile is a missile," he said. "It
makes no difference whether you are killed by a missile fired
from the Soviet Union or from Cuba." Incredible though it may
seem, McNamara's instinctive initial "do nothing" reaction has
been fully established. In this he stood almost alone. 22
When others objected that a policy of inaction would make
Khrushchev look like a winner to the entire world, McNamara
sharply disagreed. Paul Nitze, one of McNamara's Assistant
Secretaries, had the courage to oppose his superior.23 He
pointed out that the warning time of a sudden missile attack
would be cut from fifteen minutes to one or two and that the
strategic bomber force of the U.S. could be largely destroyed by
such a sudden attack. But the Secretary of Defense held to his
position for several days, the lone advocate of a "do nothing"
policy.
At a later time McNamara would refer to the Missile Crisis
as "the most satisfying episode of my life." His attitudes during
that episode furnish an insight into the mental processes of the
man who headed the military establishment of the world's most
powerful nation for seven crucial years. During that period the
U.S.S.R. made astonishing progress toward overtaking the U.S.
in missile weaponry. Shortly after McNamara took office, it was
customary to speak of American nuclear superiority in terms of
5-to-l or 4-to- 1. When he relinquished office in 1968, he was
suggesting that the U.S. forego superiority and accept parity
with the Soviet Union; this by then, in fact, appeared well on
the way to achievement.
The political-strategic philosophy that rejects American su
22 Hitsman, pp. 195, 197.
23 Abel, p. 52.

periority in favor of parity has been propagated by many influ
ential men within and outside the V.S. government. But its ac
ceptance by McNamara is among the elements that made him
one of the most controversial figures in recent American his
tory. Hanson W. Baldwin, the well-known New York Times
military editor, has written: "Secretary McNamara is the first
Secretary of Defense who has attempted to define the potential
enemy's policies and strategies as well as our own. This danger
ous arrogance--dangerous to the V.S.-matches his periodic
propensity, sometimes likened to occasional columns by Walter
Lippmann, for arguing with impeccable logic [and] complete
precision, from one false premise to a false conclusion."
Within the scope of this narrative it is worth noting that
McNamara's behavior in the Missile Crisis commended itself
to the Soviets. When they spoke of the "madmen" of the Penta
gon they pointedly excepted the Secretary of Defense; they
looked upon him as an intelligent and sophisticated spokesman
for the "realist" camp. In refusing to share this appraisal, Bald
win had the solid backing of virtually all American military ex
perts.
The ExCom meetings took place in George Ball's conference

room at the State Department. Some were called for specific
times, but as a rule they continued through the day and into
the night in a confused and disorganized fashion, with mem
bers coming and going at random. Secretary of State Rusk
should have presided, but his noncommittal attitude, as in the
early Bay of Pigs discussions, opened the way for Robert Ken
nedy to become the discussion leader. 24
The President himself seldom attended these eady meetings,
at which Bobby Kennedy's custom of barking sharp questions
and commands annoyed some of the older men. He was gen
erally regarded as the "Assistant President," and he seemed so
241bid., pp. 57, 58.

to consider himself. One participant said, "We all knew little
brother was watching and keeping a little list of where every
one stood." When George Ball argueq against an air strike,
Kennedy backed him. He spoke of Pearl Harbor, saying his
brother was not going to be the Tojo of the 1960s. He feared an
invasion would have to follow an air strike and that many inno
cent people would be killed.
The experience of Dean Acheson and Robert Kennedy in the
discussions has been related in fascinating detail by the highly
regarded TV news correspondent Elie Abel. The elderly states
man certainly had soft spots in his early career, but he has be
come, through long experience and at an incalculable cost to the
Free World, a "hard liner" in dealing with Communism. Robert
Kennedy, thirty-two years his junior, came into conflict with
him by following a soft approach.
Acheson took the position that to compare the Missile Crisis
to Pearl Harbor was patently absurd. The Monroe Doctrine
had been a warning to the world for many years that the United
States would not tolerate an aggressive European power in the
Americas. Congress and the President had specifically warned
the Soviets in the clearest language that the United States would
act if they installed offensive weapons in Cuba. Acheson specifi
cally recalled the Presidential warnings of September 4 and 13
and the recent Joint Congressional Resolution of October 3,
in which the United States expressed its determination "to pre
vent in Cuba the creation or use of an externally supported
military capability endangering the security of the United
States." The security of the United States was now at stake,
Acheson emphasized, and the entire free world would under
stand if the country moved forcefully to protect itself. The
Soviets had provided the perfect opportunity to get rid of Cas
tro and Communism, as well as to force removal of the missiles.
"We had the thumbscrew on Khrushchev," Acheson later said,
"and we should have given it another turn every day. The Rus
sians had no business being in Cuba in the first place."
But Robert Kennedy challenged Acheson, asserting that his
brother simply could not order an air strike. Once again, as in
the Bay of Pigs meetings, he raised the specter of "world opin
ion," and he spoke of the ideals and convictions of the Ameri
can people. An air strike, he feared, would irreparably damage
America's image in the world.
It was these meetings that gave currency to the labels of
"hawk" and "dove." Some of the participants, notably Dean
Rusk, were described as "dawks" and "hoves" because of their
ambiguous position. It was the Bay of Pigs all over again, al
though here the presence of uniformed representatives of the
military was limited to General Maxwell Taylor, whose partici
pation in the discussions remains unclear. The conservatives
advocated a military strike, and the liberals backed away. Some
of those involved wavered from one position to another, while
others held to their convictions.
One who never wavered was Adlai Stevenson. It may have
been just happenstance, but Stevenson and Acheson never con
fronted one another in the conference room. And this was just
as well since, according to Elie Abel, they despised one another,
Acheson having long regarded Stevenson as indecisive, soft, and
fuzzy-minded, and Stevenson looking upon Acheson as a war
hawk.
On Thursday night, October 18, a decision was reached in
favor of a blockade. The military found it impossible to accept
the wisdom of this decision. The following morning the Joint
Chiefs of Staff met with the President and argued for half an
hour in favor of an air strike or an invasion. 25 This annoyed
the President because it delayed his departure for Cleveland,
where he was to make a campaign speech, but he heard them
out. When he informed them that he had made up his mind,
the Joint Chiefs, in the usual military tradition, assured the
President that his orders would be carried out to the best of
2I1Ibid., p. 83.
their ability. When the President said to Admiral George W.
Anderson, Chief of Naval Operations, "This will be up to the
Navy," Anderson replied, "Mr. President, the Navy will not
let you down." General Curtis LeMay, Chief of Staff of the
Air Force, was assigned responsibility for all reconnaissance
activities.
By the evening of Friday, October 19, Acheson decided to
stop attending the ExCom meetings. He was not in the gov
ernment and did not wish to take part in working out plans
for the blockade he had opposed. He went off to his farm in
Maryland and did not return the next day.
That night Sorensen started working on the President's
speech. The conservatives, however, were not happy. They con
tinued to argue that a heaven-sent opportunity had been af
forded to get rid of Castro and Communism in Cuba. The
blockade, if effective, would prevent the delivery of more mis
siles or bombers, but what about those that were already in
Cuba? It was known that 42 MRBMs were being prepared for
launching, and the IL-28 bombers were being assembled. 2fl
Sorensen dropped his work on the speech and joined the Com
mittee, protesting that a decision had been reached and that the
discussion should not be reopened.· McNamara strongly sup
ported him. Then, at the suggestion of the State Department,
the blockade was called a "defensive quarantine," on the theory
that it would give less offense to the Soviets. 27 There was some
discussion as to whether petroleum should be barred by the
blockade but McNamara opposed this, and his view prevailed.
On Saturday morning, October 20, Kennedy broke off his
campaigning and returned to Washington with the explanation
that he had a slight respiratory infection and temperature.
He met with the ExCom in the Oval Room of the White Honse
in what proved to be a bitter session. Rusk had prepared a
memorandum giving seven reasons for choosing the "quaran

27 Hilsman, p. 205.
tine" over the air strike, the chief of them being that an air
strike would be irreversible. 28 Predictably, McNamara sup
ported him.
At this point Adlai Stevenson, who had come in late from

New York, came up with several incredible proposals. Although
the CIA had reported that twenty-eight launching pads were
under construction and that the first thousand-mile MRBM
could be ready for firing in a few hours, Stevenson advocated a
diplomatic approach to the U.S.S.R. He also proposed that the
United States abandon the great naval base at Guantanamo Bay
as part of an agreement with the U.S.S.R. to neutralize and
guarantee the territorial integrity of Cuba. Rationalizing this pro
posal, he said that the base was of little value in any case.
Then Stevenson brought Turkey into the discussion. Calling
attention to the American Jupiter bases in that country, he
argued that people would ask why it was right for the U.S. to
have bases in Turkey but wrong for the Russians to have them
in Cuba. President Kennedy, he said, should consider offering
to remove the Jupiter bases in exchange for the removal of the
Soviet missiles from Cuba. 29 McCone and Dillon bitterly and
sharply attacked Stevenson, who nevertheless held his ground.
The President rejected the suggestions, although the one having
to do with the dismantling of the Turkish bases obviousiy had
made a deep impression upon him.
Stevenson's position at this meeting so frightened most of
those present that even the Kennedy brothers decided he lacked
the toughness necessary to deal with the Soviets at the United
Nations. 30 John McCloy was therefore asked to return from Eu
rope to work with and watch over Stevenson at the United
Nations. Instead of abandoning the Guantanamo Naval Base,
orders were given to reinforce it.
It was no secret that Adlai Stevenson had wanted to be Sec
28 Abel, p. 93.
29lbid., pp. 94-96.
30 Ibid., p. 96.
36Z DAGGER IN THE HEART

retary of State and had chafed at being on the "wrong end of
a telephone" in New York, being told what to do. Eric Sevareid
has written, "In particular, he could not bear having certain
White House and State Department people whom he regarded
as mere youngsters telling him what to do." 31
Stevenson's later performance with McCloy's help at the
United Nations, however, was creditable. On one occasion he
sharply questioned Russian Ambassador Zorin on the introduc
tion of missiles into Cuba, demanding to know whether he de
nied that they were being placed there: "Yes or no? Don't wait
for the translation. Yes or no?"
Khrushchev did not like this and told Stevenson so when he
visited Moscow the following summer to see the limited nuclear
test ban treaty signed. "What has happened to you, Stevenson,
since you started working for the United States government?
We don't like to be interrogated like a criminal in the dock."
Stevenson related this incident a few months before his death,
and expressed regret that the Kremlin leaders no longer con
sidered him "objective."
It was the October 20 meeting of the ExCom that gave rise
to the charge that "Adlai wanted a Munich."
The President's speech was set for 7 P.M. Monday. By Sun

day the press had a fairly complete idea of what was happening,
and the President telephoned the publishers of the Washington
Post and The New York Times, asking them not to give the
. story away in the Monday morning editions. McNamara made
a similar plea to the publisher of the New York Herald Tribune.
All complied except the Times, which ran a front-page story
on Monday saying that there was an air of crisis and tension
in the capital and that the President was expected to go on tele
vision in the next day or two to remove the veil of secrecy. The
Navy and Marine Corps were staging a powerful show of force,
31 Eric Sevareid, "The Final Troubled Hours of Adlai Stevenson," Look,

November 30, 1965, p. 86.
not far from Cuba, it said, "which has been the site of a large
Communist buildup in recent weeks." There was speculation
in Washington, the Times reported, that there had been "a new
development in Cuba" that could not be disclosed as yet.
It had been decided that America's principal allies should

be advised of the developing crisis in advance and that Dean
Acheson was the best man to tell de Gaulle. Rusk called his
former chief Saturday night, October 20, and asked if he would
fly to Paris. The final decision was not the one Acheson had
favored, he explained, but in spite of this the President wanted
him to tell de Gaulle. On Sunday Acheson flew to London,
where he was met at the airport by Ambassador Bruce and
where he dropped off a set of aerial photographs, one security
man and one photo interpreter. Bruce was to take the evidence
to Macmillan the following morning. Acheson then continued
to France, landing a little after midnight. At 2: 30 P.M. he
reached Paris, where he received a call from Kennedy asking
him to go on to Germany after seeing de Gaulle.
The meeting between Acheson and the President of France,
which took place late Monday afternoon, October 22, is of
historical interest. De Gaulle had never forgotten that at the
time of the German occupation of France, Roosevelt and
Churchill had ignored and humiliated him. Since that time, he
believed, Washington, through its intimate relations with weak
British governments, had shown that it did not consider de
Gaulle worthy of its confidence. Now de Gaulle had become
one of the giants of his time. He had ended the Algerian War,
made the franc a hard currency, balanced the budget, almost
doubled social security allowances, greatly increased his coun
try's gold reserves, and in general had made France a rich,
stable country for the first time in many years, with a sense of
pride in its future. But he did not have much love for the
"Anglo-Saxons. "
According to Blie Abel, de Gaulle opened the conversation
by saying that the occasion presumably was one of importance,
since Kennedy had done him the honor of sending so distin
guished an emissary. He asked Acheson whether he had come
to consult him or to inform him. When Acheson said he had
come to inform, de Gaulle commented that this was quite
all right since he favored independent decisions. When Acheson
completed his report de Gaulle said Kennedy had done exactly
what he would have done, that he had no other choice. "You
may tell your President," he said, "that France will support
him." When the two men finally turned to the photographic
evidence, de Gaulle inquired from what altitude the pictures
had been taken. From 14 miles, he was told. HC'est formidable,"
he said, and repeated, <tC'est vraiment formidable." De Gaulle
had never seen such amazing photography. Using a magnifying
glass the old soldier picked out four different types of Soviet
fighter planes on the Cuban airfields. 32
The conversation turned to possible counter-actions Khru
shchev might take in Berlin, Turkey, and elsewhere, but de
Gaulle brushed these possibilities aside. "If there is a war,
France will be with you. But there will be no war." He ques
tioned whether the quarantine would be sufficient, as Adenauer
would later. According to Elie Abel, de Gaulle asked Acheson
why, in his opinion, the Russians had put missiles into Cuba,
and Acheson said that the answer might not be flattering to his
own government. The Russians had perhaps been led to believe
they could get away with the audacious plan. De Gaulle agreed.
Khrushchev, of course, did not question the power of the United
States. What he questioned was Kennedy's ability to use it
intelligently.
On Monday, October 22, the group of Presidential advisers

was formally organized into an Executive Committee of the Na
tional Security Council and instructed to meet with the Presi
dent at ten o'clock each morning in the cabinet room. On the
same day the President met with Congressional leaders, who
32 Abel, p. 113.
WHAT LED TO TIlE CRISIS 365
had been hastily summoned to Washington. At the briefing one
of the most respected leaders of the Democratic Party, Senator
Richard B. Russell of Georgia, criticized the blockade plan as
being a half-way measure. aa Even Senator Fulbright of Arkan
sas, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called for
an invasion. Fulbright later explained that he had recom
mended invasion of Cuba because he felt that a blockade, which
would involve a forceable confrontation with Russian ships,
would be more dangerous than an invasion that would put
American soldiers against Cubans and allow the Russians in
Cuba to stand aside.
Most of the Congressional leaders felt that the blockade
would be ineffective in achieving what should have been accom
plished; they felt that the time had arrived to get rid of Castro.
The meeting lasted more than an hour, and it left the President
in what one of his aides has described as "a smoldering rage." 34
The President also consulted the British Ambassador, David
Ormsby Gore, who is now Lord Harlech. He presented the vari
ous alternatives: air strike, invasion, blockade, or a diplomatic
move through the United Nations. McNamara's "do nothing"
recommendation had been discarded. The Ambassador said that
the reaction in England to an air strike would be unfavorable;
he preferred the blockade. Pleased, a smiling President told the
Ambassador that this was what the United States was going to
do. Later the British Ambassador was to offer a suggestion as
to how the U.S. Navy should tactically conduct the blockade,
and, establishing a historical precedent, an American President
would gratefully receive the advice and act upon it immediately,
33 Years later, in an interview in U.S. News & World Report,

Senator Russell said of the Missile Crisis: "It's very unfortunate we
didn't go ahead then and clean up Castro and the Communists and the
missiles all at one time when we had a reason for doing it. I think it
would have had a very salutary effect all over the world and probably
would have avoided a number of Vietnams in the future. . .. I begged
the President on bended knee to go ahead and wind up that Cuban episode
while we had a reason for doing it."
34 Abel, pp. 119, 120.
although it was considered imprudent by Admiral Anderson,
Chief of Naval Operations, and by Admiral Robert Dennison,
the Commander in Chief of the Atlantic Fleet.
After his meeting with the President, Ormsby Gore sent a
long report to the British Prime Minister. If the British Govern
ment was not formally consulted, it certainly became the first
of America's allies to be completely informed, lending support
to de Gaulle's opinion that France was usually relegated to a
secondary position by Washington.
The stage was now set for the momentous "eyeball to eye
ball" confrontation with Khrushchev. Only the few representa
tives of the military and the CIA, together with two or three
civilian Presidential advisers, had given serious thought to the
fact that the Kennedy administration had been offered, for the
second time, a glowing opportunity to eliminate the Communist
beachhead in the Western Hemisphere.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
. Anticlimax
The Soviet Union's military weakness vis-a-vis the United States

at that juncture was not recognized by the general public, and
the press and electronic media overran with panicky talk about
a nuclear showdown. Many people therefore expected that
Moscow would react to President Kennedy's tough speech of
October 22, 1962, by sealing off Berlin, bombing American
missile bases in Turkey, or ordering Soviet submarines to pro
tect Soviet vessels running the American blockade.
But the hours slipped by, and the Kremlin did nothing. Not
until the next morning was there any sign of response, and this
was merely an official statement transmitted by Tass calling the
blockade a violation of international law and repeating that the
missiles in Cuba were defensive. As for Khrushchev, his cus
tomary bluster vanished and he began to show unmistakable
symptoms of fear.
Admiral George W. Anderson, Chief of Naval Operations,
was given charge of the "quarantine" by the President; Ander
son designated as the blockade line a great arc extending eight
hundred miles out from Cuba, beyond the reach of MIG fighters
and IL-28 Soviet bombers based there. He ordered the closing
off of the five navigable channels through which vessels could
approach Cuba from the mid-Atlantic. He assigned a task force
of nineteen destroyers and cruisers to this duty, including the
flagship of the Second Fleet of the Atlantic Command. About
DAGGER IN THE HEART
twenty-five Soviet vessels heading for Cuba had been spotted
by Navy reconnaissance planes. The position and speed of each
was plotted on a large wall chart in the Navy Command Center
at the Pentagon and the White House was kept fully informed.
On the evening of October 23, President Kennedy had an
other meeting at the White House with British Ambassador
Ormsby Gore, who expressed concern over the unfavorable re
action of the British newspapers, most of which were calling the
blockade an act of war that could lead to nuclear annihilation.
The Ambassador suggested that the U-2 photographs showin'g
the Russian missile sites be published the following day, and
this suggestion was followed. 1 While they were talking Robert
Kennedy walked into the room and said he had just come from
a meeting with Dobrynin. He reported having found the Soviet
Ambassador tired and shaken and said he had told him, rather
bitterly, that it had been largely on the strength of his false as
surances that the President had assured the American people
that there was no danger hom Cuba. Dobrynin, according to
Robert Kennedy, kept repeating that, so far as he knew, there
were no missiles in Cuba that could reach the United States.
It was at this meeting that the British Ambassador made his
recommendation for an important modification in the tactical
blockade plan of the U.S. Navy: That the arc be drawn much
closer to Cuba, to give Khrushchev more time to consider his
plans. Kennedy agreed immediately and called McNamara, tell
ing him to give the Navy these instructions. 2
The President also was worried that there might be some

shooting, and issued orders that vessels approaching the inter
ception arc should not be boarded, but merely followed and
kept in view. No ships were to be intercepted without specific
1 Elie Abel, The Missile Crisis (New York: J. B. Lippincott Company,

1966), p. 138.
Mifilin Company, 1965), p. 818.
ANTICLIMAX 369
instructions in each case from the White House,3: and this order
was relayed immediately to the naval forces through regular
command channels. However, to make certain that the instruc
tions were understood, McNamara decided to calion Admiral
Anderson in the Navy Command Center in the Pentagon. Ac
companied by his deputy, Gilpatric, he;: went to the Navy Flag
Plot at about ten o'clock on the night of Wednesday, October
24.4
Admiral Anderson was concerned over the order to draw
much closer to Cuba the great arc the Navy had laid out as the
line at which Soviet ships would be intercepted. McNamara ex
plained that the concession was a political decision,II to give the
Soviets time to determine their course of action, but Anderson
said he saw no reason to risk American lives and ships by
bringing them within range of the MIGs and bombers. Mc
Namara did not apprise the Admiral that the order was British
inspired.
Those who heard the conversation between McNamara and
Anderson say it is unlikely that any civilian head of the Amer
ican military establishment has ever addressed the ranking offi
cer of the U.S. Navy in a more arrogant and insulting manner.
Spotting a marker on a chart, indicating an American ship at a
considerable distance from the blockade arc, McNamara de
manded to know what it was doing there. Anderson did not
reply immediately, as there were thirty men in the room and the
answer involved information of a highly classified nature. A
little later he drew McNamara aside and told him that the ship
was "sitting on top" of a Soviet submarine. 6 There were six
Russian submarines in the Atlantic at the time, all of which had
been spotted by the U.S. Navy.
3: Abel, p. 154. Also, Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation (New York:

Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967), p. 215.
4 Abel, p. 154.
liIbid., p. 155.
6 Ibid., pp. 154, ISS.
Although in October 1962 the American Navy did not yet
have the anti-submarine rocket (ASROC), it had emphasized
anti-submarine warfare and had developed and improved sev
eral detection devices and new weapons which permitted it to
detect and follow enemy submarines and force them to the
surface. The ASROC, which came later, is able to blast a
rocket from under the water to the surface and through the sky
until near the target. The rocket then releases a torpedo or
nuclear depth charge by parachute. After falling into the
water the depth charge explodes, or the torpedo homes-in on its
victim, as would a conventional torpedo. 7
American Naval Intelligence knew when each Soviet sub
marine left a Baltic or Black Sea port, when it passed into the
Mediterranean and out into the Atlantic, and the Navy knew
the general position of each Soviet undersea ship in the At
lantic. U.S. anti-submarine forces were able to track them and
bring them to the surface if necessary, and since none of the
Soviet subs had nuclear missile capability, they posed no threat
to American centers of popUlation. They were, of course, a
serious threat to naval and merchant vessels in the Atlantic.
McNamara sharply asked Anderson how the Navy planned
to intercept vessels in the blockade zone. The answer was that
each ship had on board a carefully prepared blockade manual
that had been evolved continuously from the earliest days of the
U.S. Navy. But this was different, McNamara insisted; this was
a political and not a military confrontation. The President did
not want to push Khrushchev to extremes and therefore did not
want any Russians shot; nor did he want to humiliate them. The
purpose of the blockade was to persuade Khrushchev to draw
back without retaliating.
The Secretary of Defense called for full details. He asked
whether there was a Russian-speaking officer on each blockad
ing vessel, and Anderson said he personally was not sure but
that orders had been issued for each ship to have one. "Then
7 Life Science Library, Ships, 1965. Time Inc., p. 133.

ANTICLIMAX 371
find out," McNamara snapped. s The fact was that the Navy had
anticipated this requirement and had assigned Annapolis lan
guage instructors to blockade duty. At one point McNamara
asked Anderson. what he would do if a Soviet ship captain re
fused to answer questions about his cargo. Anderson replied
that all such details were covered by the manual carried on each
ship.
"I don't give a damn what John Paul Jones would have
done," McNamara exploded, "I want to know what you are
going to do now." 9 Anderson had not mentioned John Paul
Jones. He tried hard to control himself and he did. The conver
sation came to a close when he said lightly and smilingly to Mc
Namara, "Now, Mr. Secretary, if you and your deputy will go
back to your offices, the Navy will run the blockade." 10 With
out replying McNamara and Gilpatric stalked out of the room.
However, that was not the end of it. Later, presumably on Mc
Namara's demand, Admiral Anderson was not reappointed at
the close of his two-year term in July 1963. And after he had
testified under oath before a Senate Comm4tee investigating the
award of the TFX (F-l11) contract, the Public Affairs officers
of the Department of Defense told the story of the "Incident in
Flag Plot." They attributed Anderson's non-reappointment to
the poor performance of the Navy during the Missile Crisis. In
truth, the Navy's performance had been superb.
Not only did the President order that there was to be no

boarding attempt without his specific approval, he personally
checked the way in which the blockade was being conducted.
On Thursday, twenty-two hours after the blockade became
effective, a Soviet tanker was permitted to pass through after
reporting by radio that she carried only petroleum. A half-hour
later an East German passenger ship was permitted to go
through the blockade. Before the quarantine was terminated,
8 Abel, p. 155.
9Ibid., p. 156.
10 Ibid., p. 156.

after being in force for twenty-seven days, fifty-five vessels
were allowed to breach the blockade arc. Of these, nineteen
were Soviet merchant ships; six were vessels of other Commu
nist-bloc countries; twenty-three ships were registered in other
countries but sailing under Soviet-bloc charters; and seven be
longed to friendly countries. ll
During the blockade, only a single ship was boarded. Ken
nedy had decided that, in order to give minimum offense to the
Russians, the first ship to be boarded should be a dry cargo ship
of neutral registry. It proved to be an American-built Liberty
ship, the Maruc/a, Panamanian-owned but of Lebanese regis
try, and bound for Cuba under Soviet charter. The Marucla was
sighted at about 10:30 P.M. Thursday night, October 26, by
an American destroyer, the John R. Pierce, which was later
joined by another destroyer. The two destroyers trailed her at a
distance of two miles. Talking with the skipper by radio, they
found he was entirely willing to cooperate.
At 7 o'clock the next morning one of the destroyers sig
naled, "You should have to; stop at once." A boat was low
ered over the destroyer's side, and the Marucla dropped a lad
der over her side. The destroyer was able to reassure a jittery
Washington at 7: 50 A.M.: "Party aboard Marucla. Cooperation
good. No difficulties expected." After the ship's records and the
contents of one hold had been examined, the Marucla was al
lowed to sail on. By pure coincidence, the destroyer that made
the headlines with its action in placing a boarding party on the
Marucla was the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., named for the Presi
dent's brother.
Meanwhile Khrushchev was showing increasing signs of fear.

One of the earliest was Moscow's eager reply to a peace appeal
put out by Bertrand Russell, the British peer who still performs
prodigiously for peace when Communist interests are at stake.
The Earl had sent his appeal to both Kennedy and Khrushchev:
ll1bid•• pp. 172. 210.

ANTICLIMAX 373
"The question of war and peace is so vital." Moscow replied on
October 24, "that we consider useful a top-level meeting [in
order] to do everything [possible] to remove the danger of un
leashing a thermonuclear war." Kennedy's answer was more
appropriate. The matter was being discussed in the United Na
tions, he said, and added, "I think your attention might well be
directed to the burglars rather than to those who have caught
the burglars."
Another indication of Soviet alarm came on the same day
from London. There Dr. Stephen Thomas Ward, an osteopath
who later became notorious in the Christine Keeler sex scandal,
was approached by his friend the Naval attache of the Soviet
Embassy, Captain Eugene Ivanov, who suggested that the Brit
ish immediately call a summit conference in London. The Rus
sian said he could guarantee Khrushchev's acceptance of such
an invitation and added that the U.S.S.R. was prepared to turn
back all ships carrying arms to Cuba and to discuss the removal
of missiles already installed there.
Ward had many influential friends, and he went to work. He
gave the Resident Clerk at the Foreign Office an account of his
conversation with Ivanov, and this was passed on to the Perma
nent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office. In reporting this
incident to the Commons later, Prime Minister Macmillan
quoted Ivanov as having told Ward "that the Soviet Govern
ment looked to the United Kingdom as their one hope of con
ciliation. "
On the same afternoon, October 24, Khrushchev sent for an
American businessman who was visiting in Moscow, William
Knox, the president of Westinghouse International, who had
once been a neighbor of Dean Rusk in a New York City suburb.
When Knox arrived for the unsolicited appointmcmt, he found
Khrushchev in a state of exhaustion, appearing not to have slept
all night. The Chairman's aim was to get a message to Kennedy
through a private channel, and he regaled Knox with peasant
jokes and anecdotes. The details of this conversation have never
been published but the astonished Knox left Moscow the next
day and delivered the message to Washington. Khrushchev at
about the same time chose to pay a well-publicized call on the
American singer Jerome Hines, after his Moscow concert.
These various actions led Averell Harriman to conclude, ac
cording to Schlesinger, that Khrushchev's behavior was that of
a man "who was begging for our help to get off the hook."
By Thursday, October 25, twelve of the twenty-five Russian
vessels had turned back from Cuba, and the Soviets had taken
no action in Berlin, Turkey, or elsewhere. The ships that had
turned around were presumably those carrying missiles. On the
same day the British Ambassador in Prague reported that the
Russian leaders there were "damned scared." They needed a
way out, he declared. And also on the same day the Soviet
charge d'affaires in London, V. A. Loginov, requested and was
accorded an interview by the Foreign Secretary. He expressed
the hope that Her Majesty's Government would do all in its
power to avert developments in Cuba which could push the
world to the brink of a military catastrophe. Meanwhile several
members of the Soviet Embassy were making approaches to
various diplomatic missions in London, and again Ward, the
versatile osteopath, arranged for Ivanov to call on a coopera
tive member of Parliament. The Russian repeated his sugges
tion that Britain appeal for an urgent summit conference to
be held in London. This conversation was reported to the For
eign Office, and later Ward himself delivered the same message
there.
The previous day U Thant, Secretary General of the United
Nations, had appealed to the Russians to suspend arms ship
ments to Cuba and to the Americans to call off the quarantine
for two or three weeks to open the way for negotiations. In his
reply to Thant, Kennedy gave assurances of the American de
sire for a peaceful solution and said Stevenson was prepared to
discuss the matter with him. Khrushchev's reply the same day
was even more specific and affirmative. "I welcome your initia
tive," he said. "I declare that I agree with your proposal, which
ANTICLIMAX 375
accords with the interests of peace." And on Friday, October
26, V. A. Zorin, the Soviet Ambassador to the UN, was assur
ing other UN diplomats that the U.S.S.R. would not fall into
the American "trap" of retaliatory action in Berlin.
In addition to these and many other probes by the Soviets,
seeking a way out of their dilemma, there were ten communica
tions that passed between Moscow and Washington, five each
way.12 Several of these have not as yet been published. One,
which will be described later, was a long, rambling communica
tion from Khrushchev. An ExCom member who saw it is re
ported to have said that Khrushchev must have been either
«tight or scared" when he wrote it. 18
It will be recalled that one of Adlai Stevenson's suggestions at

the ExCom meeting of October 20 was that the United States
should give up its Jupiter missile bases in Turkey in exchange
for Khrushchev's bases in Cuba. By a strange coincidence,
Walter Lippmann got the same idea and presented it in a col
umn that appeared in the Washington Post and elsewhere
throughout the country on October 25. Like Stevenson, he
argued that the U.S. missile base in Turkey was all but obso
lete, the Soviet base in Cuba was also of little military value,
and "the two bases could be dismantled without altering the
world balance of power." The fact was that the American mis
siles in Turkey, Italy and England had just become operative.
Ambassador Dobrynin evidently came to the conclusion that
this was a trial balloon floated by the White House, and on
October 27, two days after the Stevenson-Lippmann proposal
appeared in print, Khrushchev officially and formally called for
dismantling of the Turkish 'bases.
Although no more missiles were coming into Cuba, the Rus
sians were losing no time in speeding to completion the installa
12 Ibid.,p. 202.
ISIbid., p. 182.

tion of those already on the island. This was apparent from
continuing photo surveillance. Realizing that time was running
out, the conservatives again urged an air strike. The missiles
could be ready to fire in a matter of hours, and the only safe
course was to eliminate them before they could strike at the
United States, or enable the Kremlin to blackmail the United
States with the threat of a strike. McNamara agitatedly opposed
this, and the President backed him. If further action were
needed, McNamara declared, the next step should be a tighten
ing of the blockade, perhaps by adding petroleum, oil, and
lubricants to the contraband list, a step the military had urged
from the outset.
Certain events of Friday, October 26, led to an extraordinary

development, unprecedented in American diplomatic history. It
resulted in the violation of the Kennedy pledge, announced April
20, 1961, three days after the Bay of Pigs invasion, that the
United States would never abandon Cuba to Communism. It
also made a mockery of the message Kennedy had addressed to
the Cubans in his Missile Crisis speech only four days earlier,
when he said the American people had watched with deep sor
row when their fatherland fell under foreign domination, and
expressed the hope that Cubans would be "truly free."
At about 1: 30 P.M. John Scali, an American Broadcasting
System reporter assigned to the State Department, received an
urgent telephone call from a Russian acquaintance named Alex
ander S. Fomin, who was one of several Soviet Embassy coun
selors. Fomin wanted Scali to meet him in ten minutes for lunch,
saying it was of the greatest importance. When Scali arrived at.
the rendezvous Fomin appeared to be highly excited. Would the
State Department, he asked, be willing to settle the Cuban crisis
if the missile sites were dismantled under UN supervision and
the United States pledged itself not to invade Cuba? Fomin ex
plained that if Stevenson would approach Zorin at the UN, he
would find the Soviet Ambassador to be interested.
ANTICLIMAX 377
Scali hurried back to the State Department office of Roger
Hilsman, to report this astonishing, informal, unofficial in
quiry. Hilsman contacted Rusk, who communicated with the
White House. Rusk then asked that the television man be
brought to his office, where he handed Scali a single sheet of
paper on which he had written in his own hlUldwriting the mes
sage Scali was to give the Russians: "I have reason to believe
that the USG [United States Government] sees real possibilities
in this and supposes that representatives of the two governments
could work this matter out with U Thant and with each other.
My impression is, however, that time is very urgent." 14
At 7:30 P.M. Scali met with Fomin again, this time in the
coffee shop of the Statler Hilton Hotel, a block away from the
Soviet Embassy. "Are you absolutely certain this comes from
the highest sources?" Fomin asked. Upon receiving this assur
ance he rushed off, saying he must communicate with the highest
authorities in Moscow. In his hurry he dropped a five-dollar bill
on the table for a thirty-five-cent check. The Russian Embassy
had received an affirmative answer from the White House within
six hours of the time it submitted the extraordinary proposal.
A day or two later Fomin met with Scali again and told him,
"I have been instructed to thank you and to tell you that the
information you supplied was very valuable to the Chairman
[Khrushchev] in helping him to make up his mind quickly." 15
In researching this almost incredible story I have not been
able to uncover the slightest evidence that Kennedy, Rusk, or
any other American official considered, discussed, or even men
tioned the welfare of Cuba. At this moment in history the Presi
dent and his advisers, concerned solely about the missiles,
agreed to abandon more than seven million Cubans to Com
munism and to give the Soviet Union a sanctuary 90 miles from
the shores of the United States! This marked, after 139 years,
14/bid., p. 177.
Iii Hilsman, p. 224.

the death knell of the Monroe Doctrine, which President
Cleveland had said "cannot become obsolete while our Re
public endures."
About two hours after the Scali-Fomin episode, the already

mentioned long and disordered communication from Khrushchev
started coming into the State Department for the President.
It has never been published, but several who have seen it say it
showed signs of great alarm. Elie Abel has written that even in
paraphrase it read like "the nightmare outcry of a frightened
man." The time had come, the Soviet boss said in the still-secret
letter, to stop the drift toward war, the horrors of which he
described. He appealed to Kennedy as a "military man" to
understand that missiles were only a means of extermination,
and that unless they were backed by troops they could not be
offensive. He repeated that ships then en route to Cuba carried
no weapons at all. Passions should be controlled on both sides;
relations should be normalized. He was prepared to enter into
the negotiations U Thant had proposed. They should each stop
pulling at the ends of a rope in which a knot of war had been
tied. He was ready to take measures to untie the knot.
The missiles had been sent to Cuba to defend the country
against invasion, Khrushchev added. If the President would
publicly give assurance that the United States would not attack
Cuba or permit others to attack, the motive for having missiles
in Cuba would be removed. And if Kennedy would then with
draw the American fleet, the entire situation would be normal
ized.
In the State Department there was jubilation. Secretary Rusk
consulted Acheson, who was not impressed. Acheson is reported
to have said later, "We were too eager to make an agreement
with the Russians."
As the days had passed and the Kennedy administration·

showed by its actions and inactions that it was anxious not to
ANTICLIMAX 379
provoke the U.S.S.R., Khrushchev's alarm apparently subsided,
but on Saturday, October 27, an incident occurred that again
raised the temperature in Moscow and undoubtedly induced
Khrushchev to bring the crisis to an end, as some of those close
to President Kennedy subsequently admitted. But this salutary
experience was unintentional and, in fact, seemed to frighten
the White House as much as it did the Kremlin.
An American U-2 on a routine air sampling mission from
Alaska to the North Pole chose the wrong star to guide it on
its return flight and strayed over the Chokut Peninsula of the
Soviet Union. Soviet planes rose to meet it and American planes
took off from Alaska to help escort it back. The lost plane was
asking for directions-in the clear-and there was no en
counter, but there is reason to believe that Khrushchev viewed
the flight as possibly a final reconnaissance preparatory to a
nuclear attack.
It was Hilsman, "out of breath and shaky," according to his
own account, who excitedly gave the President the news of the
off-course American plane. Kennedy's reaction was interesting.
With an ironic laugh he said, "There is always some so-and-so
who doesn't get the word," 16 and he later apologized to Khru
shchev, saying that he would "see to it that every precaution is
taken to prevent a reoccurrence."
An episode that may also have had an influence on Khru
shchev took place when Lincoln White, the official State Depart
ment spokesman, announced that work was continuing on the
missile sites in Cuba and quoted from a Presidential speech that
"further action will be justified" if such work did not stop.
Kennedy was furious, feeling that White had been unnecessarily
provocative. He called the Secretary of State, the Assistant
Secretary for Public Affairs, and finally Lincoln White himself,
using the kind of language he was accustomed to use on such
occasionsY Some of his advisers, however, felt that the incident
16 Ibid., p. 221.
17 Ibid., pp. 213, 214.

had been beneficial, that it led the Soviets to believe the Presi
dent should be taken seriously.
It was also on October 27 that Radio Moscow began broad

casting another Khrushchev letter addressed to Kennedy. It sug
gested that the American bases in Turkey be evacuated in
exchange for the withdrawal of Russian missiles from Cuba.
(This proposal, it will be recalled, originated in the United
States with Adlai Stevenson and Walter Lippmann.)
Schlesinger had first heard of the Missile Crisis late on Fri

day, October 19, from Stevenson, who had always admired
Schlesinger's facility of expression and now asked him to help
prepare the speech he would have to make early in the week at
the Security Council of the United Nations. The following day,
Schlesinger met with the President, Rusk, Robert Kennedy, and
others, to go over the draft. The President struck out a passage
that threatened an American air strike if the missile buildup in
Cuba continued. Schlesinger reports a remark by Robert Ken
nedy, who drew him aside and said, "We're counting on you to
watch things in New York.... We will have to make a deal at
the end, but we must stand absolutely firm now. Concessions
must come at the end of the negotiations, not at the be
ginning." 18
When the second Khrushchev communication was announced

over Radio Moscow on Saturday, October 27, the liberal mem
bers of ExCom began discussing ingenious ways to remove the
Turkish missiles without seeming to accept Khrushchev's
terms. 19 They felt that a grateful United States could afford to
pay a considerable price if the Russians would stop their Cuban
buildup at once; this new concession could be masked as part
of an offer to relax tensions between NATO and the Warsaw
Pact. 20
18 Schlesinger, p. 81l.
19 Abel, p. 194.
20 Ibid., p. 194.
ANTICLIMAX 381
After the ExCom meeting there was a private conversation
between the President, Rusk, and McNamara, and the President
then assigned Gilpatric to spend the afternoon in Bundy's office
at the White House with State Department and military assis
tants, writing a "scenario" for the early removal of all Jupiter
missiles from Turkey and, presumably, from Italy and England
as well. Judging from the partial disclosure of the messages
which passed between Washington and Moscow, Khrushchev
had not even mentioned the American bases in Italy and En
gland. Evidently they were thrown in as a bonus. Gilpatric's
scenario was to be ready for an ExCom session at nine o'clock
the same evening, and the White House that afternoon issued a
statement that read in part, "As to proposals concerning the
security of nations outside this hemisphere, the United States
and its allies have long taken the initiative in seeking properly
inspected arms limitations, on both sides. These efforts can
continue as soon as the present Soviet-created threat is ended."
In his excellent book America Is in Danger 21 General Curtis
E. LeMay, former member of the Joint Chiefs and first com
mander of the Strategic Air Command, says that the United
States had provided IRBMs to Europe because the Soviets have
at least 750 intermediate and medium range nuclear ballistic
missiles in place, with a range of up to 2,500 miles. Thors and
Jupiters were mounted at great cost: sixty in England, thirty in
Italy. and fifteen in Turkey. "These IRBMs," writes General
LeMay. "became operational just before the CUban Missile
Crisis in 1962, but after the crisis was resolved, the United
States dismantled its entire IRBM operation in Europe. . . .
Nothing is left of the extremely expensive complex of Thors
and Jupiters." The reason given at the time was that the
American IRBMs were obsolete. "I did not accept the explana
tion that the missiles had become obsolete so quickly," says
General LeMay, "nor did any other military man I know." An
21 Curtis E. LeMay, America Is in Danger (New York: Funk &

Wagnalls. 1968).
other military expert remarked acidly that the cement in the
American missile bases in Europe was hardly dry when the
politicians ordered them dismantled. 22 "The precipitous action
smacked of a deal," says LeMay, and if it was a deal "we
definitely came out on the short end of the bargain in a confron
tation which has been hailed as a great American diplomatic
victory." 23
In the first three editions of this book I wrote that the ques
tion as to whether the decision reached at the White House on
Saturday, October 27, 1962 (to remove the newly mounted
American missiles from Europe) had been "passed along" to
the Kremlin would have to remain a secret that only future
revelations could clear. Since then Robert Kennedy's post
humous book, Thirteen Days, has been published. In it he con
firms that he communicated the decision to the Soviet Ambassa
dor in Washington (pp. 108-109).
The removal of the American Jupiters from Turkey and Italy
must be viewed in the larger context of Mediterranean power
balance. Since the eighteenth century Russia had been trying to
extend its influence into the Western mare nostrum. After
World War II, Stalin vainly sought naval bases in the colonies of
defeated Italy. But by 1968 the power equation in that sea was
changing. The U.S.S.R. at this writing maintains a regular Medi
terranean fleet of forty to forty-five ships, which use Syrian and
Egyptian bases and may soon be using facilities in South Arabia
and Algeria as well. According to a statement made by Hanson
W. Baldwin, the renowned naval authority, to the author on
October 8, 1969, the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean then
varied between fifteen and more than sixty ships. It was still
stronger than the Soviet fleet because of its aircraft carriers
and Polaris submarines; yet the Russians were moving up. Their
intrusion was not due only, or even mainly, to the closing down
221bid.
281bid., p. 200.
ANTICLIMAX
by the United States of its Turkish and Italian missile bases.
The biggest Soviet step forward came as a result of the six-day
Arab-Israeli war in 1967, which made the Arab belligerents
wholly dependent on Soviet Russia militarily, politically and
economically. The new threat to the Sixth Fleet comes from
the Soviet thrust toward the airfields and air facilities on the
north coast of Africa. Using Egyptian facilities, their bombers
already cover the eastern Mediterranean and the loss to the
United States of air facilities in Libya, coupled with the use by
the Soviets of Algerian facilities, would be a tremendous factor
in swinging the balance of power against the West, with
strategic consequences of enormous importance. Now the So
viets are calling for the extrusion of the American Sixth Fleet
from the Mediterranean! At the same time, Turkey is quietly
asking for a reduction in the American garrison.
Who will say that the removal of the U.S. missile bases from
Italy and Turkey seven years earlier-without revealing to the
American people that it was part of the Missile Crisis settlement
-did not signal the turning point against the West in this
crucial area?
The acceptance of the Russian proposal that the United States

pledge itself not to invade Cuba was drafted by Robert Kennedy
with the assistance of Sorensen and dispatched to Khrushchev
at 8:05 P.M. Saturday, October 27.24 It said that if work ceased
on the offensive missile bases in Cuba and the weapons system
were rendered inoperable "under effective UN arrangements,"
American representatives in New York could work out with
U Thant and the Soviet representative "an arrangement for a
permanent solution to the Cuban problem along the lines sug
gested in your letter of October 26" [Emphasis added]. The
United States would "remove promptly the quarantine measures
now in effect and . . . give assurances against an invasion of
hAbel, p. 197.
Cuba." The President added, "I am confident that other nations
of the Western Hemisphere would be prepared to do likewise."
The United States would also "work toward a more general
arrangement regarding 'other armaments' as proposed in your
second letter, which you made public."
Those on the inside were aware that the "other armaments"
included the missile bases in Turkey, and probably in Italy
and in England, but this was not made clear to the public. On
the previous day the White House had eagerly agreed to the
"no invasion" formula, even before the Russians had formally
proposed it, and now came the formal acceptance--including a
confident prediction that "other nations of the Western Hemi
sphere" would give a similar "no invasion" pledge.25 President
Kennedy was not authorized to commit other nations and, in
fact, none of them ever gave the U.S.S.R. such a pledge.
On Sunday morning, October 28, at approximately nine
o'clock Washington time, Radio Moscow broadcast the answer.
It announced that orders had been given to dismantle the missile
bases. Khrushchev added, "I regard with respect and trust the
statement you made in your message of 27 October, 1962, that
there would be no attack, no invasion of Cuba, and not only on
the part of the United States, but also of other nations of the
Western Hemisphere, as you said in your message."
Did the United States give the Soviets a secret commitment
that it would prevent an invasion of Cuba if other nations at
tempted one? This question has been raised through the years
and seems justified by the wording of Khrushchev's reply. But
no clearcut answer has been provided by Washington.
There remained, of course, the vital problem of arranging

for on-site inspection in Cuba. The CIA and the military took
the position that only physical on-site inspection would provide
complete confirmation that the Soviet missile threat had ended,
U Ibid., p. 194-198.
ANTICLIMAX 385
and President Kennedy agreed. The first step in conducting a
preliminary inspection was taken immediately. C-130 transport
planes were ordered to be painted white with UN markings, and
Canada agreed to supply the pilots. Four administration officials,
including White House, State Department, and Air Force rep
resentatives, proceeded to New York to talk to Stevenson. The
UN Ambassador took a negative attitude; he did not think
Thant could be persuaded to act so quickly. He said he would
not talk tough to Thant and, in fact, Thant refused to move
until he had what he regarded as proper authority.26 He met
with Castro and the Cuban President on October 30 and 31 in
Havana.
Castro, who had been almost completely ignored throughout
the crisis, had just broadcast an arrogant demand that the
blockade and all economic pressures be suspended, as well as
harassments and raids by exile commando groups. He also
demanded American withdrawal from Guantanamo Bay. When
Thant arrived in Havana he did far more to save Castro's face
and restore his prestige than Khrushchev had done. My steno
graphic transcript of the conversation shows that Thant started
off by criticizing the United States for having established the
blockade: "an extremely unusual thing, a very unusual act,
except in times of war," he said. This, Thant went on, is what
he had told the Security Council, and his view had been shared
by the forty-five countries that had met with him. On at least
ten occasions he told Castro that in his view a UN inspection
team would violate the sovereignty of Cuba.
When Castro asserted that the United States was trying to
humiliate Cuba, Thant replied that he was "completely in agree
ment . . . that the proposed action of the UN involved the
invasion of the rights of a member state." Throughout the inter
view Thant's attitude was abjectly apologetic. He gave the
impression that he was performing a distasteful duty for the
26 Ibid., p. 206.
United States instead of trying to implement an agreement
reached by both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. He never once men
tioned the U.S.S.R.
Then, amazingly, the United States accepted as its next emis
sary the wily Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet official who had been
largely responsible for providing arms to Castro! The mission
was, of course, doomed to failure. As though this were not
enough, the administration made still another concession ob
viously dangerous to the security of the United States. Disre
garding the warnings of military and intelligence experts, it
settled for high-altitude flight inspection instead of the on-site
plan. U.S. In'~lligence chiefs now concede that surface-to-sur
face missiles could be secreted in Cuban caves and in highly
sophisticated underground installations.
Thus ended the 1962 Missile Crisis. The American people

had been led to believe that they had faced a danger of aweSOme
proportions. Secretary Rusk said a misstep could have meant
the "incineration of the North American continent." Schlesinger
described Kennedy's performance as "a combination of tough
ness and restraint, of will, nerve and wisdom, so brilliantly con
trolled, so matchlessly calibrated, that [it] dazzled the world."
Small wonder that the outcome was regarded by a misinformed
public as an American victory.
But was it?
The accounts of the crisis did not make clear that it was a
power confrontation, that the power of the U.S.A. was incom
parably superior to that of the U.S.S.R., and that the leaders of
both nations knew this to be a fact. The United States, it is
worth repeating, could have erased every important Soviet
military installation and population center in two or three
hours, while the strike capability of the U.S.S.R. was negligible.
Although Kennedy held the trump cards, he granted the Com
munist Empire a privileged sanctuary in the Caribbean by
means of the "no invasion" pledge. Apologists for the White
ANTICLIMAX 387
House deal argue that the pledge was conditional and that the
conditions have not been fulfilled, but it has remained intact
now for eight years-the "permanent solution" guaranteed by
the White House.
The Soviets regard the pledge as binding, and the United
States acts as if it were binding. On January 16, 1964, in Red
Square and with Castro standing behind him, Khrushchev said,
"The understanding with the United States administration is still
valid and we honor our pledge [not to mount rockets] as long
as [it] is observed." As late as July 11, 1967, in a broadcast
nationally televised in the United States, Khrushchev said, "We
took our bombers and rockets away in exchange for President
Kennedy's promise not to invade Cuba." He added, "After
President Kennedy's death, President Johnson, who took over,
assured us that he would stick to the promises made by Presi
dent Kennedy."
What about additional secret American commitments?
In an interview published in December 1966 Castro said that
the United States made concessions "about which not a word
has been said. . . . One day perhaps it will be known that the
United States made some other concessions in relation to the
October crisis besides those that were made public. It was not
an agreement in accordance with protocol. It was an agreement
that took place by letter and through diplomatic contacts."
Following the crisis, orders went out from the White House
to arrest anti-Castro activists in the United States and confiscate
their weapons and vessels, and this has been the fate of the
Cuban Freedom Fighters ever since. Sorensen put it this way:
"He [the President] asked that precautions be taken to prevent
Cuban exiles from upsetting the agreement. . . ."
Why has Congressional leadership not forced the disclosure
of all communications that passed between Washington and
Moscow at the time of the Crisis, as well as any pledges given
by Robert Kennedy to Ambassador Dobrynin in Washington or
by Adlai Stevenson to Ambassador Zorin at the United Nations?
According to the columnists Robert S. Allen and Paul Scott,
aides of Secretary Rusk have said that he opposes release of the
Kennedy-Khrushchev exchange because the contents "would
anger and excite anti-Castro groups in this country" and "cause
embarrassment to officials who participated in the correspond
ence." But surely the American people deserve to know to what
extent the security of their country has been impaired, and the
Cuban people want to know what kind of a deed to their country
Washington has given to Communist Russia.
Is the security of the United States and the hemisphere

threatened?
It is not difficult to imagine the fascination with which the
Kremlin has studied the map of the Caribbean-America's
Mediterranean. Because of the narrow straits that separate Cuba
from its neighbors, the nation that dominates it commands the
sea approaches to the Mississippi Valley, the Panama Canal,
Mexico, Central America, and the north coast of South An:~r
ica. Giving the Soviets a privileged sanctuary in Cuba is equiva
lent to converting a strategic island inside the final defense
perimeter of the United States into a Trojan Horse. Cuba has
already become a fortress of unknown power, and it is an in
calculably valuable asset to the Soviet Union as that country
thrusts toward world maritime dominance.
The maritime program of the U.S.S.R. has expanded amaz
ingly. Moscow plans to have acquired the largest merchant
fleet in the world in the next decade. While the United States
has been losing merchant fleet tonnage, Russia has been adding
about 500,000 tons yearly. It has the world's second largest
navy and the world's largest submarine fleet. It is laying down
aircraft carriers and developing marine commandos, essential to
conventional warfare along maritime peripheries. It already op
erates the world's largest and most modem fishing fleet, keyed,
as are all Communist projects, to political-economic purposes,
and equipped with radar, electronic, sonar, and sound-ranging
ANTICLIMAX 389
equipment. Soviet fishing trawlers show up wherever the U.S.
Navy goes. As of this writing the U.S.S.R. has more naval
vessels in the Mediterranean than the United States.
With a Caribbean outpost Russian vessels can avoid. the long
trip home for repairing and refueling. Scores of excellent Cuban
harbors provide the needed havens. Nipe Bay alone is large
enough to serve as an anchorage for the combined navies of
every nation in the world. Located on the north coast of the
eastern province, it is superior to the U.S. Guantananio Naval
Base. About eleven miles from east to west and seven miles
long, its entrance is only half a mile wide and has a depth of
twenty-eight fathoms. In outline it resembles the famous harbor
of Sydney in New South Wales. Within sight, on a nearby
peninsula, stands the great Nicaro Nickel plant, built by the
American taxpayer at a cost of over $100 million and now
operated for the benefit of the Soviets.
So Khrushchev knew where he was going when he probed for

a "no invasion" pledge in October 1962, and President Ken
nedy knew, to some extent at least, what he was doing when he
handed Cuba over. Schlesinger quotes him as saying, "They
will attack us on the ground that we had a chance to get rid of
Castro and, instead of doing so, ended up by guaranteeing him
against invasion. . . . But the military are mad . . . it's lucky
for us we have McNamara over there."
In 1968 McNamara, after resigning his Defense post, publicly
and extravagantly praised Robert Kennedy-who was by then
a Senator and seeking his party's nomination for the Presidency
-for his role in the Missile Crisis. As the realities of the 1962
settlement become more widely understood, this friendly praise
may well appear unintentionally ironic.
The performance of Dean Acheson and his subsequent

equivocal views offer an interesting study. A statement he had
made three years before he became Secretary of State for Presi
dent Truman marked him as being soft on Communism. He was
a liberal. Here is what he said:
"Never in the past has there been any place on the

globe where the vital interests of the American and the
Russian people have clashed or even been antagonistic.
And there is no objective reason to suppose that there
should now, or in the future, ever be such a place. We
understand and agree with them that to have friendly
governments along her borders is essential . . . for the
peace of the world."
A month later President Truman called on Chiang Kai-shek,

who throughout his life had opposed Communism, to accept
Communists into his government. It became the policy of the
United States to withhold aid from Chiang unless he formed a
coalition with Chinese Communists. In January 1949, the
month that Acheson became Secretary of State, Tientsin and
Peipin fell to the Reds, who had already occupied Mukden and
captured Manchuria. That same month Congressman John F.
Kennedy, in an address at Salem, Mass., sharply criticized
America's policy in Asia. "It has reaped the whirlwind," he said.
A month later Acheson suggested to Truman that supplies which
were being loaded in ships in Hawaii and San Francisco for the
Chiang Kai-shek government "be dramatically stopped, as a
move toward peace." But six months after Acheson became
Secretary of State the State Department issued a White Paper
disclaiming responsibility for the debacle in China!
Five months later, on January 12, 1950, Acheson announced
publicly that Korea was outside the American defense perimeter,
and that the United States would not give aid to Formosa. And
five months after that, on June 25, 1950, as if in response to this
announcement, the North Koreans invaded South Korea spear
headed by 100 Russian tanks and with Russian arms, opening
a war that many believe never should have been fought and in
which 157,530 Americans were killed or wounded.
ANTICLIMAX 391
More than twenty years have passed since Acheson became
Secretary of State and his views have changed. He knows now
that the United States is confronted throughout the world by a
ruthless, incompatible ideological power, the basic principles
of which have not changed in half a century. In the interim
China, with one-fourth the population of the world, has been
lost.
But let us return to the 1962 Missile Crisis. Acheson had

strongly urged President Kennedy to liquidate the Communist
outpost in Cuba and, although this advice was rejected, he is
nevertheless entitled to the highest marks for advocating it. One
wonders, however, where the explanation lies for his extraor
dinarily equivocal position in the aftermath of the settlement.
On the very day, a Sunday, that Radio Moscow announced
acceptance of the Kennedy "no invasion" pledge, Acheson
wrote President Kennedy what Sorensen has described as a
letter "which praised in superlative terms his handling of the
crisis," a letter in which Acheson himself says he praised
Kennedy for his "leadership, firmness and judgment." And in a
letter to me dated February 1, 1968, he expressed "great re
spect" for the performance of the President during the crisis.
But in the February 1969 issue of Esquire magazine Ach~son
published an article revealing radically different views. In it he
writes critically of Robert Kennedy's posthumous book, Thirteen
Days. Its title: "Dean Acheson's Version of Robert Kennedy's
Version of the Cuban Missile Affair"-with the sub-title: "Hom
age to Plain Dumb Luck."
Acheson challenges Robert Kennedy's contention that to
take military action would have been "a Pearl Harbor in re
verse." He says this is to "obfuscate rather than clarify" the
issue "by a thoroughly false . . . analogy." As between the
choice of destroying the missiles or pressuring for their removal
by a naval blockade, he describes the former as "the necessary
and only effective method ..." In his mind the blockade created
greater dangers. He agreed with de Gaulle and Adenauer that
a "blockade was a method of keeping things out, not getting
things out."
When McNamara receded from his "do nothing" stance to
the next softest position, the blockade, arguing that "it would
leave us in control of events," Acheson felt otherwise. He be
lieved "the blockade left our opponents in control of events"
and that the Secretary's argument was "unworthy" of his
"analytical mind." The decision to resort to a blockade "was a
decision to postpone the issue" while the nuclear weapons
were being made operable. He calls the ExCom meetings
"repetitive, leaderless, and a waste of time" and says that on
October 19 "I asked to be excused from further attendance."
In referring to Robert Kennedy's statement that on one oc
casion, when there was almost unanimous agreement that the
U.S. had to attack the next morning and that the President had
said, "We won't attack tomorrow. We shall try again," Acheson
writes that what Kennedy tried again was another postponement
of action while the Soviet work on the missiles drove on. "It
was a gamble to the point of recklessness," he says, a "hundred
to-one shot." Hence the subtitle: "Homage to plain dumb luck."
Robert Kennedy's remark that Dean Rusk "had other duties
and responsibilities during this period and frequently could not
attend our meetings" provokes sharp comment. What other
duties and responsibilities could have been "half so important
as those they displaced"? The ExCom "should have been under
the direction of the head of Government or his chief Secretary
of State and his military advisers," according to Acheson. But
the main advice reached the President through his brother "out
of a leaderless uninhibited group, many of whom had little
knowledge in either the military or diplomatic field." And
finally: "This is not the way the National Security Council
operated at any time during which I was officially connected
with it; nor, I submit, the way it should operate."
Thus we have Acheson's final appraisal of the Missile Crisis!
How account for his adulatory letter to the President six years
ANTICLIMAX 393
earlier? Can it be, as some have suggested, that the installation
of a Republican administration in Washington in January 1969
was the catalyst that induced the change?
The law firm which Dean Acheson heads, Covington &
Burling, is one of Washington's oldest, largest and most pres
tigious firms. I have handled some of its Cuban work and
know it well. It occupies the top four floors of a building across
Lafayette Park from the White House. It represents corpora~
tions, trade associations and individuals before Federal admin
istrative agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service and the
regulatory commissions. Typical of its clients are the tobacco
manufacturers who are fighting Federal regulation of cigarette
advertising and the manufacturer of a pharmaceutical prepara
tion, Geritol, which has been struggling for ten years with the
Federal Trade Commission over allegedly deceptive advertising.
But it is no reflection on the Acheson firm that it should seek
to establish a cordial relationship with the new Republican
bureaucracy. My firm occupied a relatively similar position in
Havana and we always strove to maintain a good relationship
with every Cuban government, whether we liked it or not. Nor
can I subscribe to the suggestion that this was the principal con
sideration that led Dean Acheson eventually to speak candidly
about the Missile Crisis. But whatever his reasons for so doing,
I welcome his contribution to the historical record.
Was honor forsaken?

On April 20, 1961, three days after the Bay of Pigs invasion,
President Kennedy addressed a group of newspaper editors at
the White House. In referring to the invaders who had deter
mined that Cuba must not be abandoned to the Communists,
he said, "And we do not intend to abandon it either." But
eighteen months later he did abandon Cuba to Communism.
In the same address Kennedy said, "If the nations of this
hemisphere should fail to meet their commitments against out
side Communist penetration-then I want it clearly understood
that this government will not hesitate in meeting its primary obli
gations, which are to the security of our nation." Eighteen
months later Kennedy told Khrushchev that he was confident
that those hemisphere nations would join the United States in
giving assurances that "outside Communist penetration" would
not be disturbed!
In the same address Kennedy spoke of the reign of terror in
Cuba, of the police state and its use of mass terror to prevent
free dissent. "We must build a hemisphere," he said, "where
freedom can flourish; and where any free nation under outside
attack of any kind can be assured that all our resources stand
ready to respond to any request for assistance." But eighteen
months later he regarded his more than seven million Cuban
neighbors as expendable and delivered them into Communist
enslavement.
No, the solution of the Missile Crisis was far from the
grandiose achievement it has been acclaimed as being. There is
no foundation for the belief, hardened into legend, that it was
"Kennedy's Finest Hour." On the contrary, it may well prove to
have been a defeat and a calamity for the United States and
Latin America, and therefore for the Free World.
One who never equivocated was Richard Nixon. He cor

rectly said that the same group of advisers who stayed the
President's hand at the Bay of Pigs persuaded him to back
away from a strong course of action in the Missile Crisis. He
wrote, "They enabled the United States to pull defeat out of
the jaws of victory." 27
For the Cuban people, who have always been staunch allies
and genuine friends of the United States, the settlement was a
soul-shattering blow.

Digest, November 1964.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Cost
Under the banners of a self-righteous "liberalism," the American

Government made a series of policy choices with respect to
Cuba that can be fairly called "decisions for disaster." They
began with the deliberate raising of Fidel Castro to supreme
power. There followed the sabotage of an invasion by Cuban
Freedom Fighters that had been approved, prepared, and
mounted by Washington itself. The climax was a settlement of
the Missile Crisis that guaranteed a protected sanctuary for
Communism, without time limit and without consent by other
nations directly concerned.
These unhappy decisions have imposed costs too staggering
to be treated adequately in a limited space. I can only suggest
their magnitude. Because today's world is shrunken and inter
meshed, misfortunes in one segment are reflected everywhere
else. The exacerbated troubles and perils on the American con
tinents affect the destinies of all mankind.
A large part of the price of the American errors is being

paid by the nations of Latin America, especially those in the
Caribbean area. They must live with the fact that the "no inva
sion" guarantee has enabled Soviet Russia and its associates to
convert Cuba into a powerful base, sophisticated and effective,
for subverting the hemisphere, not excepting the United States.
The annulment of the Monroe Doctrine is breeding fear and
doubt where there had been a large measure of confidence. In
March 1968, for instance, the President of Argentina told sev
eral hundred of the highest officials of that country that Latin
America could no longer rely on the United States for protec
tion against Communist aggression. The United States, he
pointed out, had failed to come to grips with the Red penetra
tion of Cuba and had narrowly averted a similar defeat in the
Dominican Republic; Latin America would have to follow a
go-it-alone policy for its own defense and security.
Cuba has become a multi-sided center for preparing Commu
nist leaders and activists: experts in sabotage, terrorism and
espionage; orators and agitators; specialists in handling uncon
ventional arms and electronic equipment. Thousands of young
men are brought from Latin American countries for training
as guerrillas. Already imbued with the Communist mystique,
they are professionally indoctrinated and assigned targets for
sabotage (principally United States installations); given the
names of known or suspected homosexuals among members of
home-town police and army units who might be vulnerable to
blackmail for subversive purposes; informed of possible tax
irregularities among business and industrial leaders with the
presumed connivance of bureaucrats. Then they are infiltrated
back into their homelands by Red Cuba's fishing fleet.
Their purpose---working with the local Communist Party,
backed by agents from Cuba and other countries-is to exploit
student and labor conflicts and social problems, and to create
disorder by provoking violence. They apply tested techniques
for driving the authorities to rigorous law enforcement and the
use of police measures, in order that they may label their gov
ernment as "dictatorial" and impute to the authorities sole
blame for the weakening of the democratic structure.
Cuba, in short, has become the protected staging area for
Communist propaganda directed against the entire hemisphere.
Printed matter on a vast scale-magazines, books, pamphlets
of every variety, presenting the Communist ideology and assail
ing established institutions-is produced in Cuba; motion pic
tures are made and exported; international festivals and con
THE COST 397
gresses are staged. The volume of propaganda, radiated to the
entire hemisphere by radio and news media in several languages
and dialects, is constantly enlarged, aggravating existing racial
problems and fomenting new tensions. It even plays a calculated
role in the incitement of riots in U.S. cities. Everywhere the
objective is to undermine democratic systems and destroy ele
ments of stability.
When Khrushchev exacted the sweeping Uno invasion" pledge
from President Kennedy in October 1962, he struck a mighty
blow at the foundations of society in the Americas. But, for
the present at least, the main costs of the decisions for disaster
are being paid by the almost eight million Cubans sub
jected to Communism; paid in servitude, suffering, and death.
Their martyrdom should weigh as a burden on the conscience
of America.
Cuba today is a totalitarian state, in many respects as repres

sive as Soviet Russia was under Stalin. Castro has made his
country as shabby, unproductive, police- and censor-ridden as
any nation behind the Iron Curtain-all in less than a decade.
Havana, formerly one of the most beautiful cities of the
Western Hemisphere, is now drab and sleazy. The supermer
cados, drug stores, and cafes still function there and elsewhere
on the island, but they are tarnished and dirty, and half empty
of merchandise. Streets and roads are littered with automobiles
and buses in various stages of disrepair, and gasoline is strictly
rationed. Machines in factories break down chronically. absen
teeism runs as high as 30 percent, and the regime has to resort
to various species of forced labor to keep the economy limping
along.
The conversion of a free enterprise system into a monolithic
noncompetitive "socialist" economy by an arrogant and inex
perienced lawyer has produced chaos. With each passing month
the flow of foodstuffs to the cities and towns slows down, while
weary housewives stretch in queues from shop doors, awaiting
rationed goods. Even Castro's Soviet allies, who have to sub
sidize his incompetence and bungling, grumble at the way their
bearded puppet has mismanaged what was once a flourishing
and expanding economy.
The only commodities plentiful in Cuba today are "Hate
America" propaganda and promises of a better future. Brought
to power by propaganda, Castro continues to use it without
let-up. Cubans are incessantly exhorted and harangued to work
harder, to love Fidel and the new Cuba he has fashioned, and
to hate the "imperialist Yankees." But the people have become
disillusioned with the slogans and the failures of the regime.
Despite the risks, more and more of them are no longer re
maining silent over the shortages and the endless calls for ever
greater sacrifice.
Castro is no longer getting the kind of favorable reportage
that Herbert Matthews used to provide in The New York Times.
Too many of the crimes of the dictatorship have become known;
too many personal experiences under the terror have been re
counted by fugitives. But the regime still obtains considerable
"objective reporting"-a euphemism for reports slanted in
Castro's favor-in the outside press and on the air. The dictator
ship sees to it that only liberal journalists and commentators
visit Cuba. In issuing visas, it favors newsmen and writers with
little knowledge of what the country was like before it became
a Communist outpost.
Most of the dispatches and books read by Americans con
cede "difficulties," even discontents, but proclaim that the peo
ple are better off than in the past. They seem determined to find
historical alibis for obvious political oppressions and economic
evils of the present. The motivation for this brand of apologetics
under the guise of reporting is often ideological, but in the main
it stems from simple ignorance; sometimes it is a combination
of both.
The lamentable practice of comparing present-day Cuba with
the Cuba that supposedly was, has been followed even by James
Reston of The New York Times. An article he wrote about an
automobile trip he took from Havana to Santiago along the
THE COST 399
Central Highway on July 23, 1967, provides an example. He
took note of the miserably poor houses and other squalors but
affirmed that life was much better than it had been a decade
ago. "Then there was no continuous paved road from Havana
to Santiago, or so it is said...." But every Cuban and hundreds
of thousands of Americans know that the Central Highway was
constructed between 1927 and 1931 and served as the back
bone of the Cuban highway system for more than a third of a
century before Reston's journey. He recently discussed Cuban
women in a manner that was, if possible, even more distant from
the realities. Castro had "liberated" the women, he told his
readers, adding the gratuitous insult that prior to Castro the
women of Cuba were "ninnies."
The truth is that Castro has degraded and humiliated the
Cuban woman. As in Soviet Russia, women in Cuba now do
arduous manual labor. By December 1967, Castro had 196,000
women doing servile agricultural work in the fields. This was
a "gain" of almost 100,000 over his female work force in 1965,
and he has plans for further "liberation." The government has
announced that by 1970 it expects to have 500,000 women
employed in field work, and to help meet this goal it is con
structing additional camps to accommodate between 300,000
and 500,000 of both sexes. Selection will be made by its G-2
the Cuban Gestapo--on the basis of political unreliability. Cu
ban women have never before swung the machete in the blister
ing sun and the sudden torrential showers that convert the cane
fields into seas of mud.
This kind of liberation is more than matched by the way in
which Castro has "liberated" Cuban women from morality. The
regime itself admits that illegitimacy, abortion, and divorce rates
have risen dramtically.
A revealing reference to moral debasement under the Castro
regime appears, curiously enough, in Castro's Cuba, Cuba's
Fidel, an adulatory book written by Lee Lockwood, an admirer
of the dictator. The author carried a tape recorder and camera
to Cuba and spent seven days and nights taking pictures of
Castro and recording his words. Subsequently, since he judged
Lockwood's heart to be in the right place, Castro enabled him
to visit some of his prison camps. In the course of the marathon
interview Lockwood raised the subject of prostitution. Castro
explained that changes were being made in sexual relations but
these presented problems, in view "of certain traditions derived
from Spanish customs, which are stricter in this aspect than,
for example, Anglo~Saxon traditions."
Castro, however, was tackling the problem boldly and obvi~
ously breaking down some of those religious and moral tradi
tions. One shocking device is a government-run chain of
posadas, "where couples go to make love, no questions asked,"
as Lockwood put it. This enterprise is flourishing; Lockwood
could report that there are at least two or three dozen in Havana
alone. Because of economies possible under "socialism," the
Revolutionary Government rents rooms for only 2.65 pesos
(about 66 cents in U.S. values) for the first three hours and
50 centavos (about 12 cents) an hour thereafter. So popular
in this nationalized recreation that some nights, according to
Lockwood, "there is often a long line waiting for rooms in front
of some posadas, at times extending a block or two down the
street." This is the kind of scene never witnessed in the "dark"
pre-Castro era. Posadas existed, but such activities were clandes
tine and discreet.
In the nation's economy the picture is gloomy and growing

gloomier. Time after time Castro has proclaimed grandiose
economic plans, always with tremendous fanfare, and invariably
his big ideas have flopped. Cubans cannot openly ridicule his
performnce, but the vast majority now regard the man as a
charlatan. Only the most gullible continue to take his plans and
promises seriously.
The most conspicuous failure was probably his blueprint for
industrializing Cuba. He started on this tack in mid~1961, when
he openly proclaimed that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that
Cuba was to be a socialist state. Declaring the United States to
THE COST 401
be Cuba's enemy, he said it was necessary to liberate Cuba from
the capitalist yoke so that native industry and agriculture would
be free to seek their own high levels of development. In this pro
gram he had the help of the late Emesto "Che" Guevara, un
questionably Castro's superior in the field of economics. The
pair had the enthusiastic cooperation of various Communist
nations.
The Soviets promised one hundred million dollars for a steel
industry, electric plants, and an oil refinery. Czechoslovakia
promised an automobile factory, and China said it would pro
vide sixty million dollars for twenty-four different factories.
From Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and East Germany came of
fers of forty-two more factories. With all these production facili
ties in the offing, a campaign was launched to prepare the public
for breaking off Cuba's traditional trade ties with the United
States. l
The industrialization plan proved infantile. Wildly unrealistic
goals were set and announced with sloganized ballyhoo. Boasts
were made that by 1965 Cuba would be the most highly indus
trialized country in Latin America, leading all others in the pro
duction of electric energy, steel, cem~nt, tractors, and refined
oil. Guevara declared that within nine or ten years Cuba would
have the highest living standard in Latin America, and Castro
joined in with the prediction that Cuba's economy would grow
at a rate of 10 to 14 percent from 1962 to 1965.
Instead, the economy declined at the rate of 15 to 20 percent
annually. Productivity per industrial worker dropped 23 percent
in a single year (1962-1963), and by mid-1963 the Cuban
economy was a shambles. There were plenty of reasons for this.
Stolen machines always run less well than they did for the own
ers who worked to acquire them. Much of the new Communist
machinery could not function because of a lack of buildings to
house it, a lack of technicians to operate it, and a lack of spare
1 Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Cuba Socialista, March 1962, p. 30. Also
Theodore Draper, Castroism: Theory and Practice (New York: Frederick
A. Praeger, 1965), p. 143.
parts. In the humid climate, the equipment deteriorated on the
piers. In addition, Castro and Guevara had overlooked the sim
ple fact that to make a finished product one must have raw ma
terials. And when they started shopping for raw materials they
were amazed to find that in many cases these cost almost as
much as the finished products previously imported from the
United States.
A balance-of-payments crisis developed when the Soviet bloc
demanded an accounting. Moscow complained about Cuban
waste, disorganization, and unwillingness to work. Guevara
finally acknowledged "two fundamental errors," namely "the
declaration of war on sugar" and the push for factories "without
thinking of the raw materials for them." 2 Castro began to criti
cize his own people, calling them "bums" and "parasites." By
the end of 1964 he publicly conceded that the machinery he
had received was functioning at only 50 percent of capacity.
In the meantime, since the Cuban economy had formerly
been geared to the American economy, and American replace
ment parts no longer were available, much of Cuba's own ma
chinery was stalled. A black market developed in which a few
illicit speculators, thriving on shortages and chaos, made for
tunes by importing American spare parts and tools from mid
dlemen in Europe. These were brought to Cuba by way of Casa
blanca, Rostock, or Singapore-a slow and expensive process.
A set of used piston rings cost 90 pesos (about $22) on the
black market.
And what happened to the agricultural sector of the econ

omy?
For 150 years sugar cane had spread throughout Cuba be
cause nature had endowed the island with exactly the right con
ditions of rainfall, sunshine, and soil to make it the lowest-cost
sugar producing area in the world. But contrary to the propa
ganda legend, pre-Castro Cuba was by no means a one-crop
2 Guevara, Revoluci6n, August 21, 1963.

THE COST 403
country. There had been a strong trend toward diversification;
less land was being used for sugar and more for other crops.
As far back as 1953, according to a publication of the U.S. De
partment of Commerce, Cuba had developed an export surplus
in such commodities as com, winter vegetables, citrus fruits, and
coffee, and was self-sufficient in beef, fresh pork, poultry, fresh
milk, condensed and powdered milk, cheese, and butter. Rice
and beans had registered substantial gains. In May 1962 another
U.S. Government publication, Agricultural and Food Situation
in Cuba, stated: "When the present government [Castro's] as
sumed power, the Cubans were among the better-fed peoples
of the world."
Castro chose to make the sugar industry his main target,
"declaring war against it," as Guevara put it. In lengthy ha
rangues he depicted it as the embodiment of all the horrors of
capitalism, and a means through which the United States ex
ploited Cuban workers in mammoth American-owned mills
and on farms. As a weapon against "exploitation," he called for
diversification of crops and less emphasis on sugar.
I have pointed out that in the sugar industry the trend prior
to the advent of Castro had been strongly away from Ameri
can-owned mills. During the 19 years preceding 1958, the sugar
processed by Cuban-owned mills had increased almost 300
percent and constituted by far the larger part of the crop. Fur
thermore, in 1958 Cuba had the smallest average farm size of
any country in the Americas-140 acres.
Castro confiscated the larger farms first, but when the small
farmers attempted to sell their products at market prices rather
than hand them over to the government at the much lower offi
cial prices, he seized their lands too. Following the precedent
of Soviet agriculture in Stalin's time, the farmers retaliated with
their best weapon-they produced only enough for their own
needs. In 1962 the newly formed "cooperatives," in which the
farmers had been promised a share of the profits, were swal
lowed up by the granjas del pueblo (state farms), where the
farmers received only a low fixed wage.
Production plummeted. The last sugar crop which the gov
ernment had not restricted in the pre-Castro era had been that
of 1952, when Cuba produced within 36,000 of 8 million short
tons. Under Castro the sugar crops were all unrestricted, but in
1962, four years after he took power, the crop dropped to
4.8 million tons. Before the Castro period the United States
had bought Cuban sugar and paid a better price for it than Cuba
could get in the world market. But Soviet Russia does things
differently. It buys the sugar, not for cash but for goods and
services at prices set by the U .S.S.R. itself and heavily weighted
in its own favor.
On returning from a trip to Moscow in May 1963, Castro
announced a new agrarian reform. His "war" on sugar was
called off-henceforth Cuba would specialize in what she was
best suited by nature to raise. By 1970, he predicted, the coun
try would be producing 10 million tons of sugar annually. He
ordered a comeback of "monoculture." It had taken a Commu
nist revolution to restore sugar to the place it had held in the
bad old days of American economic domination.
The following year, 1964, when sugar prices in the world
market hit 13.2 cents a pound, the highest in forty-three years,
the Cuban crop declined still further, to 3.8 million tons. Since
then the Communist regime has kept production figures secret;
though it has moved large segments of the population into the
cane fields under conditions of slave labor, there has been little
improvement in output.
Plans for harvesting the 1970 sugar crop indicate the des
perate situation Castro now faces. Under private ownership,
the sugar mills normally begin to grind in late December or
early January of each year, because the sucrose content of cane
is highest in February and March (almost 13 percent of the
cane's weight). The harvesting of the 1970 crop, however, was
started prematurely in mid-1969, when the sucrose content runs
as low as 9 percent. Pressed, Castro sent into the fields a labor
force consisting of militia, paid at the rate of 7 pesos, or less
THE COST 405
than two U.S. dollars, a month: yes, less than two dollars a
month. Also working the fields were many thousands of political
prisoners, who were paid nothing at all; thousands of industrial
workers, who received agricultural wages that were sharply lower
than their industrial pay; and massive "volunteer" labor batta1~
ions, recruited throughout the country. Among the latter were
several hundred thousand "liberated" women.
By now Castro admits that at the time he seized power he

was not well informed about Cuba's foreign trade. Unfortu~
nately for Cuba and the Cubans, it took four calamitous years
to teach him that the country depends on exports, mostly sugar,
to pay for many of the things it needs; that sugar has always
been Cuba's "money crop"; and that Cuba cannot get something
for nothing, even under "socialism." As Theodore Draper has
pointed out, this was perhaps the most expensive course in el~
mentary economics ever· given.
During the Castro years the rice crop yield has fallen 18
percent, the yield of corn 40 percent, and of sorghum 50 per
cent. The quality of tobacco has worsened catastrophically, and
the drop in fresh milk production has produced consternation.
At this writing the supply of food available for Cubans varies
from month to month. Occasionally it is augmented by imports
from Iron Curtain countries. But the over-all trend is down~
ward. Toward the end of 1967 butter was no longer available,
nor could chickens or fish be purchased. Except for infants and
the aged, milk could be bought only on a doctor's prescription.
Coffee was restricted to one and a half ounces a week. Rice, an
important staple in the Cuban diet, was limited to three pounds,
or twelve cups, a month per person. Meat was doled out, a
quarter~pound a week-what Americans consume in a single
hamburger. The weekly ration of beans was six ounces, and
each person was allowed a pound of potatoes a week. Even the
lowly malanga, which resembles the potato, once thrown into
market baskets gratis, is now rationed. Early in 1968 the regime
began rationing bread. Queues begin to form at grocery stores
at 4 A.M., hours before opening time, and too frequently sup
plies are exhausted long before closing time at 6 P.M.
Economic distress is just one of the many causes of discon

tent, bordering on despair. In Cuba today there is a form of
passive civil war between the rulers and the people. It is re
flected in work slowdowns, low productivity, poor quality of
farm and industrial commodities-and by the sand that is often
found in gears. It is reflected, too, in the dream of escape that
obsesses so many Cubans. Despite all obstacles, 600,000 men
and women have fled the country, leaving behind everything but
the clothes on their backs. Among other things, this has de
prived the island of a substantial percentage of its technical and
professional brains and skills.
The proportion of those Cubans against the Communist
regime has been estimated by knowledgeable enemies of the
system at 85 to 90 percent. Obviously, this is not the kind of
phenomenon that can be "proved" or measured. But having
studied all available data and interviewed the best informed
escapees, I can only confirm that the malcontents are an over
whelming majority of the popUlation.
Labor certainly has no reason to love the Castroites. Here

again there is a parallel with what has happened in Europe's
Iron Curtain countries. The trade unions have become little
more than a branch of the totalitarian government. All the
great gains labor had made before the advent of Communism
were lost during Castro's first years in power. At the end of
1963 the screws were tightened on workers by the imposition
of "wage scales and work norms." Wages were fixed according
to eight categories. Three-quarters of all workers were graded
to earn from 85 to 115 pesos monthly (about $21 to $30 U.S.,
according to the present black market rate of exchange). All
wages were predicated on the fulfillment of "norms," or stan
dards of production, a familiar Soviet practice. If a worker failed
THE COST 407
to reach his norm, his wage was reduced by the percentage it
dropped below the norm. If he exceeded the norm, his wage
was increased by only half the percentage of excess. Thus the
penalty was double the reward.
Despite its harshness, the system has not worked as expected.
On October 30, 1964 the frustrated Fidel Castro admitted in
a speech that Cubans had worked more and better before the
revolution. He blamed it on the "rigor" of the capitalist system;
the private owner, he said, did not "throwaway his money or
manage his business badly." 3
On October 3, 1964 came the "Law of Labor Justice." Pun
ishable offenses ranged from lateness, absenteeism, delinquency,
and lack of respect for superiors, to fraud and damage to equip""
ment. Penalties ranged from wage deductions, starting at 15
percent for periods up to four months, to permanent depriva
tion of the right to gainful employment anywhere. "Work coun
cils" were set up to enforce the tougher rules. Members of these
councils were elected for three-year terms in 'every work center
employing twenty-five or more people. To qualify, they had to
display "a good socialist attitude toward work." In this way
trade union officials were placed in the position of punishing
workers instead of defending their interests. The Labor Minister
justified the measure on the grounds that "labor discipline has
weakened extraordinarily, while absenteeism has reached ex
traordinary proportions." 4 Six days after the election of the
work councils, the Minister shot himself.
As in all Communist countries, Cuba looks upon religion as

an enemy of socialism, and since Cuba is essentially a Catholic
country the Catholic Church has suffered grievously. All Catho
lic educational institutions, hospitals, asylums, and social cen
ters have been confiscated. For example, the Catholic University
of St. Thomas of Villanova, Marianao, has been closed for'
3 Draper, p. 184.
4 Ibid., p. 185.

seven years and is at present used as a storehouse. The large
chapel of the Coiegio de Belen is being used for secular activi
ties, occasionally functioning as a night club. Religious services
have frequently been interrupted; members of the Catholic hier
archy have been vilified, and some have been arrested. The Car
dinal Archbishop of Havana, His Eminence Manuel Cardinal
Arteaga, sought asylum in the Argentine Embassy and died in
asylum at the Papal Nunciatura. Before Castro there were 1,000
priests and 2,700 nuns in Cuba. Now there are fewer than 125
priests, and about 100 nuns.
Castro had been unequivocally on record against forced mil

itary service. "We will not establish military service because
it should not be compulsory to be a soldier." I> But on July 27,
1963, he called for compulsory military service to fight "the
parasitical element, the potentiallumpen [bums] of tomorrow."
Actually, his purpose was to build up a cheap militarized labor
corps; recruits cut cane and do other hard work for a few
pennies a day. Heading these labor battalions is Raul Castro,
the army chief.
One of the saddest consequences of the Bay of Pigs and of

the Missile Crisis is that the new generation in Cuba is being
systematically indoctrinated with the idea that the United States
is the embodiment of everything evil and eventually must be
destroyed. The youth of Cuba are taught hatred and violence.
The whole life of the country is saturated by anti-American
propaganda, and the job is done with typical Communist thor
oughness. The gutter press, the three Havana television sta
tions and five radio stations pour half-truths and whole lies into
Cuban homes every hour of every day. The unvarying Commu
nist line calls for struggle against the Yankee devils and their
"puppet" nations of Latin America. Textbooks from kinder
:; Revo/ucion, January 14, 1959.

THE COST 409
garten up, and history books in particular, have been revised
and distorted to conform to authorized "truths," another name
for official lies. Total censorship of reading matter makes a
mockery of any improvement in literacy.
To spread hatred of the United States throughout Latin
America and to stir up wars of "national liberation," Castro
recently placed in operation a 150,000-watt radio station, said
to be three times as powerful as any single radio station operat
ing in the United States. Located in Oriente province, and built
under the direction of Czech engineers, it is capable of extend
ing its radio tentacles throughout Latin America and of jam
ming more than 70 U.S. stations. Five more such stations are
under construction. Obviously these facilities, which are in
addition to 134 commercial stations for domestic use, are enor
mously costly for a country experiencing serious economic
trouble, but Communism does not count the cost where its cam
paigns of political subversion are involved.
One of Cuba's greatest problems is housing. The shortage of

living accommodations is so extreme that engaged couples often
have to wait two and three years to get married. To build the
desperately needed homes would require great quantities of
cement, among other things, and most of the nation's supply is
being diverted to build vast underground installations, storage
facilities, and connecting tunnels.
The grimmest aspect of Communist Cuba is the domination

of the individual person's daily life by the CDR, the "Com
mittee for the Defense of the Revolution." This highly per
sonalized espionage system is geared into the country's judicial
system; it supplies a constant source of victims for Castro's
execution walls, prisons, prison camps, and labor battalions.
The CDR operates in every block of every town and village.
It issues ration books, doles out milk for children, and recruits
boys and girls for the militia. Its most important function is to
spy on everyone and make sure that anyone harboring "counter
revolutionary" sentiments is promptly reported. The opportuni
ties for local persecution are, of course, limitless. One cannot
change his residence or transport so much as a stick of furni
ture to a new apartment without the knowledge and consent of
the CDR. That special tool of tyranny, the informer, is the
CDR's mainstay, and Cubans, like Russians and Chinese, have
come to know the anguish of denunciation by close friends and
relatives, and even by their children. They are aware that their
most casual conversations, their mail, their telephone calls may
be monitored and bring the panic of the after-midnight knock
on the door.
The unfortunates who are arrested come up against a legal
system that is a brutal machine of punitive compulsion. A law
decreed on March 13, 1963 prescribes imprisonment of from
twenty to thirty years for stealing as little as one hundred pesos
(about $25 U.S.), and the death penalty if the accused was in
uniform. Revolutionary courts composed of trustworthy Com
munists are required to pass sentence within seventy-two hours.
The harsh efficiency of these courts may be judged from the
way in which they have jammed the prisons and prison camps
with men and women whose only real crime was that they
could not or would not adjust to the Communist way of life.
No one knows the exact number of political prisoners, and
Castro has not permitted the International Red Cross or any
other organization to inspect his prisons and labor camps. The
lowest estimate comes from Lee Lockwood. In his book, which
Castro himself reviewed and corrected, he says that Castro told
him that there were approximately twenty thousand "politicals"
in custody and that the number was increasing. Without ques
tion this figure is a lie; estimates by knowledgeable exiles are
several times higher. Some refugees insist that the inmates of
prisons and punitive camps come to hundreds of thousands.
I have in my possession an official list of the number of po- .
Iitica! prisoners as of April 1967, stolen from the Ministry
THE <;OST 411
of the Interior and brought to the United States. It shows
69,315 political prisoners in more than 100 jails, prisons, and
prison camps. Lockwood remarks that the 20,000 political pris
oners Castro acknowledges "would be equivalent to having
600,000 in jail for political reasons in the United States." But
on the basis of the government's figure of 69,315, the U.S.
equivalent would be almost 2 million Americans in jail for
political reasons!
Castro's labor camps have all the characteristics of those in
other totalitarian countries, including the barbed-wire fences
and verminous barracks. Physical punishment is common, along
with the spiritual insult of Communist indoctrination. Signifi
cantly, as Lockwood puts it, "the majority of the internees are
not, as one might assume, men of urban backgrounds, but
campesinos-peasants of the mountains and outlying rural
areas." He goes on to say that a high percentage of the prisoners
were jailed for trivial "errors," and that many appeared to have
been the victims of overzealous revolutionary tribunals that, in
the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs invasion, meted out "justice"
with a vindictive severity recalling the Reign of Terror in
France.
In the prisons the food consists of watery coffee, bread, rice
and beans, and for dinner usually thin soup and macaroni.
Dysentery and hepatitis are rampant. After a few weeks the
prisoners become gaunt from hunger, the skin tight on their
skulls. They are not allowed to exercise; they receive no mail,
packages, or visitors. In the labor camps conditions are better.
Prisoners live behind barbed wire, of course, rise at five in the
morning, have at least three hours of indoctrination five days a
week, and spend the rest of their days at forced labor in the
fields-but at least they are permitted to visit their families
once every forty-five days. These conditions are a matter of
common knowledge throughout Cuba.
All of this concerns the living. The dead must also be

counted as part of the cost of the lost invasion of April 1961
and the no-invasion pledge given by President Kennedy eighteen
.months later.
In the fall of 1967 I talked to an old friend who had just
come out of Cuba. He has always been a man of few words
and given to understatement, but he reported to me that the
prevailing belief in Havana was that by mid-1967, more than
15,000 men had been put to death by the regime. Fewer than
1,000, he recalled, met violent deaths during the almost seven
years Batista last controlled the Cuban government, among both
the government and non-government forces and including the
Castro revolutionary activities of 1957-58.
Batista has been criticized for many things and some of
the criticism is justified. But even so-called "dictatorships" are
relative in their oppressions. Who would defend Hitler on the
ground that the last Kaiser was a tyrant? No self-respecting
expert in the field of Russian scholarship can fail to note that
Tsarist absolutism, for all its faults, was benign in contrast to
the Soviet police-state.
Not in defense of Batista but in defense of historical fact,
it must be acknowledged that his rule was benevolent and
"welfarist" in comparison to Castro terror. There are no politi
cal or other freedoms in Cuba today except on Castro's terms.
Whatever the basis of measurement, the pre-Castro past was
infinitely more attractive than the Communist present. Had it
not been interrupted by the Castro tragedy, the consistent prog
ress in industry and agriculture, science and education, would
unquestionably have put Cuba far ahead of where it was even
in 1958 and incomparably better off than it is today. And the
population would have been spared the miseries, the physical
and spiritual degradations, inseparable from Communism in
practice. They would have been spared the thousands of lives
snuffed out by Castro, the tortures in prisons, the wretchedness
of slave labor camps.
When we read about those killed in Red Cuba, we think in
terms of men riddled by firing squads. But there has been a .
continuing toll of life, thousands in the aggregate, among the
THE COST 413
men, women, and children trying to escape from the prison
island. The able columnist and former U.S. Ambassador to
Switzerland, Henry J. Taylor, recently offered a chilling glimpse
of this calamity. In a column he titled "Carnage Off Key West,"
he wrote in part:
Each day the Coast Guard sends into Castro's patrol

belt two Grumman Albatross planes and at least one cutter.
With this limited allotment, they have brought to safety
more than 800 small craft escaping from Cuba. But all
too often they find pathetic little boats carrying the bodies
of men, women and children riddled by machine gun
bullets....
The records of the Miami Cuban Refugee Center (of the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare) show
10,000 arrivals in 1,002 small boats since June 1961, a
figure which becomes about 12,000 by including those not
registered with the Center. It has been estimated that for
every one who wins freedom three die. Forty thousand
men, women and children: 12,000 alive, 35,000 corpses!
This is the awful arithmetic on the nearby island that the
United States swore to defend.
Some liberal American pundits try to persuade themselves

and their readers that Cuba has gained in national dignity,
arguing that it is no longer dependent on foreign capital, no
longer "semi-colonial." They manage to slur over the obvious
fact that Red Cuba is completely dependent, economically and
politically, on foreign nations-namely the Communist bloc.
In any case, the "colonial" issue is irrelevant. All young in
dustrial societies have relied upon capital and technical help
from advanced societies. The United States in the last century
drew heavily on foreign capital, from Great Britain in particu
lar. America and other industrialized nations, including the
U .S.S.R. itself, take pride today in providing capital and know
how to new and undeveloped countries; those countries wel
come the help. Now and always, economically young nations
have used tax benefits and other incentives to attract foreign
capital investments. The Communist jargon about colonial and
semi-colonial "exploitation" should not be permitted to cloud
our minds on the realities of this subject.
I have been reproved on occasion for failing to find "some

thing good" in the Castro dispensation. I can only reply, in all
honesty, that I have been unable to discover any virtue or
achievement to justify a system guilty of such major and fiendish
sins. 1 feel deeply about the gruesome fate of the country and
the people I learned to love and admire in four decades of liv
ing and working in Cuba.
Even things that we normally consider good have been per
verted for evil purposes. Education has been misused by Castro
to disseminate lies and to instill hatred of the United States; to
condition his followers, especially the young, to the task of
overthrowing U.S. democracy along with the societies of Latin
American countries. It has been misused to sow hatred for
religion and contempt for humane and spiritual values and
traditions.
No Cuban can support the Castro regime except on the basis
of a privileged position of self-interest, youthful delusion, inertia
-or fear. It cannot be supported by genuine faith, since even
those who had nothing to lose have learned that nothing plus
nothing is still nothing. In the population at large there are
thousands of pockets of passionate hatred for the man who
has shed so much blood and dishonored his own promises, while
ripping to shreds the economic fabric of the country.
This then is the Cuban scene behind the protective shield
of the Kennedy no-invasion pledge, and it will worsen with the
passage of time.
The Kennedy-Johnson administrations were, of course, un

willing to admit their share of responsibility for the degradation
of their Cuban neighbors. The State Department argues that the
no-invasion pledge was conditioned on a promise of on-site in-·
spection to provide assurance that the missiles had been re
THE COST 415
moved. Refusal to permit such inspection, it reasons, makes
the Kennedy pledge "inoperative," and The New York Times
supports this argument editorially.
The Soviet answer to this de jure reasoning is that the
United States accepted a modification of the agreement when
it settled for high-level air inspection in return for a promise
that its planes would not be shot down. As a consequence, says
Moscow, when the ground-to-air missiles in Cuba were turned
over to Cuban crews, it obtained a pledge from Castro not to
shoot down the American U-2's. And Khrushchev added that
when Johnson took over from Kennedy, he recognized the
validity of the Kennedy pledge.
It is indisputable that an agreement exists de facto, and that
the realities of the situation are the only aspects that interest
those who are suffering and dying in Cuba. Castro has con
firmed that the agreement not to invade "exists de facto," add
ing, "and I can say to you that even more agreements exist
besides, about which not a word has ever been said."
Such secret agreements may well refer to the harassment of
Cuban exiles. During his Presidential campaign in 1960, John
F. Kennedy criticized the Republicans for not giving more help
to the Cuban "fighters for freedom," but immediately following
the Missile Crisis settlement he ordered that they be arrested
and their vessels and weapons confiscated, calling their raids
ineffective. Everyone who has lived in Cuba is familiar with the
importance of any action tbat symbolizes the spirit of counter
revolution, and they know of the sacrifices that Cubans in
exile are ready to make for their country. Kennedy's order
sent a chill of dismay through the hearts of the Cuban patriots.
To them it meant not a hands-off policy but American inter
vention to protect Castro and the Soviet forces in Cuba.
Behind the protective shield of the Kennedy no-invasion

pledge, the best brains of the Communist Empire meet secretly
and openly to conspire and plot the destruction of democracy
in the Western Hemisphere. In January 1966 about five hun
dred delegates from seventy-nine Communist parties and "liber
ation fronts" in Latin America, Africa, and Asia met in Ha
vana. Known as the Tricontinental Conference, it was dom
inated by the thirty-four-man Soviet delegation, whose leader,
Sharaf R. Rashidov, announced that it "had come to this con
ference to promote in every conceivable way . . . our common
struggle against imperialism." A "Permanent Committee of
Assistance to Movements at War with Imperialism" was set up
with headquarters in Havana, its purpose to synchronize and
promote armed revolution throughout Latin America. The Con
ference pledged moral, political and material support for this
objective. Secretary of State Rusk noted that at the close of the
Conference the Latin American delegates "had left Havana
with their suitcases bulging with money for the intensification of
subversive movements."
The failure of the United States to react to this momentous

threat at its very threshold is part of the cost of the Missile
Crisis and the Bay of Pigs. Four years earlier Kennedy had
announced at a press conference that "If Cuba should ever
attempt to export its aggressive purposes by force or the threat
of force against any nation in this hemisphere . . . this country
will do whatever must be done to protect its own security and
that of its allies." The statement proved to be meaningless.
The terrible losses, defeats, and withdrawals continued un
abated in spite of the fact that experience has taught that
appeasement of would-be aggressors operates to bring on the
wars it is designed to prevent. The Bay of Pigs and the Missile
Crisis showed that dictators construe pacifism as moral weak
ness. They then take more gambles and increase their aggres
sion. Winston Churchill expressed this idea when he wrote after
World War II:
Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can ~
easily win without bloodshed; if you will, not fight when
your victory will be lIure and not too costly; you may
THE COST 417
come to the moment when you will have to fight with all
the odds against you and only a precarious chance for
survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to
fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better
to perish than to live as slaves.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
we 1{r}ot Of the Tragedy
If my story v.-.:re to end here, it would be little more than an

account of the principal events of Cuba's tragic decade. We
would not have identified the cause of the disasters. It is not
enough to name those chiefly to blame and to label them
"liberals." Nearly all of them are intelligent and well-meaning
men.
What motivated them? How account for their actions?
These are questions I have pondered since my escape from
Cuba. If logical and convincing answers can be found, we will
have arrived at something of importance-the cause of the
tragedy.
My search for the answers, I soon learned, was complicated
by the fact that the contemporary liberal differs radically from
the "old" liberal whom I knew so well and with whom I identi
fied nearly fifty years ago. The liberals of my youth, when I
was living and working in the United States, were nationalistic
and patriotic. There were few pacifists or semi-pacifists among
them. Then, as now, they wanted their country to be right. But
in any critical struggle their country came first, even if they
believed it might not be right. They wanted the United States
to win.
This no longer holds true. Most liberals today, if they feel
their country to be wrong, prefer that it lose out. There can be
no doubt that, for good or ill, the present-day liberal is more
internationalist, less patriotic, more inclined to pacifism than the
THE ROOT OF THE TRAGEDY 419
liberal of several decades back. He 'is likely to rate the survival
of mankind above the survival of American civilization or even
the survival of the United States. Essentially he has renounced
patriotism for ideology.
An ideology, as I understand it, is a habit of thinking and
feeling so ingrained and compulsive that it functions indepen
dently of reality. It involves such a strong commitment to a doc
trine that if empirical truth conflicts with dogma, it is truth that
becomes distorted.
A striking example of the extent to- which doctrinal thinking

may blot out reality remains etched in my memory. It was a
conversation I had in early 1965 with Dr. Milton Eisenhower,
the distinguished former President of Johns Hopkins University,
whose character and dedication to noble causes have never been
open to question.
Dr. Eisenhower's book, The Wine Is Bitter, published in
1963, contained some wild misstatements about conditions in
Cuba under Batista. In my view it is possibly the worst book
on Latin America published in the last quarter-century. He
wrote, for example: "Every person wanting an export permit,
every foreigner who purchased property in Cuba . . . paid trib
ute." My law firm obtained export permits covering Cuban
products worth a great many millions of dollars and supervised
the purchase of property in Cuba that also ran into many mil
lions. No "tribute" (graft) was paid in any instance.
Astonished at such statements by a man of Dr. Eisenhower's
reputation, I asked for and obtained an appointment with him.
To start the conversation, I asked when he had last been in
Cuba. He had never been there, Dr. Eisenhower replied. He did
not even speak our language.
A day or two before our meeting, President Johnson had or
dered the Marines into the Dominican Republic, and our talk
turned at once to that event. The intervention had "horrified"
him, Dr. Eisenhower told me. It might have been justified_ to
save lives, but never for a "political" purpose, as he felt was the
case in this instance. There would be riots and anti-American
demonstrations throughout Latin America, he was sure. The
President had violated the "sacred" hemispheric policy of non
intervention, and this could only serve the cause of Commu
nism.
There are many men, including high State Department offi
cials, who count Dr. Eisenhower among those primarily respon
sible for bringing Castro to power; as his brother's adviser on
Latin American affairs he was the man through whom Wieland
and Rubottom had a short-cut to the White House. American
political intervention had delivered Cuba to Communism. Now,
six years later, though known Communists had a dominant role
in the Dominican rebellion, Dr. Eisenhower still clung to his
conviction that the best hope for resolving the political ills of
Latin America rests with what he termed "democratic central
groups," what other liberals call the "non-Communist demo
cratic Left." The Cuban experience had taught him nothing. It
conflicted with liberal doctrine, and it was the ideology that re
mained unimpaired.
Subsequent events proved Dr. Eisenhower wrong on all
counts. The Foreign Ministers of the OAS voted to support the
intervention in the Dominican Republic. No noticeable anti
American manifestations occurred in Latin America. Brazil,
Paraguay, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica sent military
contingents; a Brazilian general assumed command of the inter
American force. Order was restored and honest elections were
held. The Dominicans overwhelmingly rejected the leftist anti
American Juan Bosch. Castro and the Communists suffered a
setback, and President Johnson was vindicated.
Had Dr. Eisenhower been as influential in determining pol
icy in 1965 as he was in 1958, there is a strong likelihood that
we would now have three Caribbean countries in the Commu
nist camp; Haiti, occupying the same island as the Dominican
Republic, undoubtedly also would have fallen.
Within the context of this book it is neither necessary nor

possible to attempt an analysis of contemporary liberal ideology
as a whole, but to understand the motivations of those policy
makers in Washington chiefly responsible for the Cuban trage
dies, it is indispensable to underline a few basic characteris~ics
of liberal thinking as it affects Cuban and Latin American is
sues.
1. All liberals unite in the belief that their main enemy is to

the Right, never to the Left. Pas d'ennemi it gauche.
To topple a rightist regime, liberals call for boycotts, ,em

bargoes, the end of tourism and of cultural contacts, and the
support of revolutionary opposition. They denounce aid to or
compromise with reactionary-to them fascist-governments as
dishonorable appeasement. Often they justify war itself if that
becomes necessary to bring the regime down.
But their response to leftist regimes and to Communism is
gentler. Here they call for an increase in cultural exchange, an
expansion of trade and of tourism, and a search for areas of
common interest. Thus, there can be no dialogue with Franco,
for Franco is a man of the Right. Tito, however, is generously
provided with money, goods, and food, because Tito is of the
Left. Over a fifteen-year period (1945-1960) the United States
gave more foreign aid to Tito's Communist Yugoslavia, with a
population of about nineteen million, than to all of Latin
America put together, which then had a population of about two
hundred million. 1 "Foreign Aid" is not "aid," it is a political
instrument.
In Cuba the enemy, for liberal American officials and the
liberal press, was Batista, although he was pro-American, had
always voted at the United Nations with the United States, had
given the Pentagon every military facility, and had welcomed

42Z DAGGER IN THE HEART
and protected American trade and business. Because Batista
was a conservative and a man of the Right. Castro, on the other
hand, although known to be anti-American, a radical terrorist,
and under Communist influence, was judged by the liberals to
be worthy of support, one with whom they could cooperate, for
whose violent nature and hatred of the United States generous
allowances should be made. Castro was a man of the Left. For
the liberals the enemy too often is not the Communist, but the
anti-Communist; not a Khrushchev or a Mao, but a Chiang
Kai-shek.
Nine months after Castro had declared himself. a Marxist
Leninist, the ADA World, official organ of the ultra-liberal
Americans for Democratic Action, strongly objected to any
armed action against him or unilateral economic sanctions
against his regime. 2 At the same time it was calling for economic
and political sanctions against South Africa and Portugal! 3 This
double-thinking is standard for such groups. Without exception
liberal opinion has favored, in its early stages, every revolution
during the present century that seemed to come from the Left
and to be aimed against the Right, including the Russian and
Chinese Communist revolutions. 4
Over the years Americans for Democratic Action has con
demned the Spanish regime and supported anti-Franco oppo
sition. Its program, adopted at the annual ADA conventions,
has never asked for support of the people enslaved by Com
munism in their struggles for liberation, whether in Russia,
China, Eastern Europe, or Cuba." It has recommended diplo
matic recognition and United Nations membership for Mao Tse
tung and withdrawal of recognition of Chiang Kai-shek. It
2James Burnham, Suicide of the West (New York: The John Day
Company, 1964), p. 21l.
3 Ibid., p. 211.
'Ibid., p. 21l.
51bid., p. 209.
THE ROOT OF mE TRAGEDY 423
calls for an attitude of "understanding of legitimate aspirations"
of the Soviet Union and urges that Washington continue both
negotiation and conciliation with the Soviet totalitarian state. 6
2. Modern liberalism always favors discussion, negotiation,

and compromise as the only rational and acceptable method of
settling disputes. It rejects the use of coercion and force.
The majority of liberals are either moderate or absolute paci

fists, and therefore are against both war and warriors, except
when it comes to canceling out the far Right. They find it diffi
cult to reconcile themselves to the use of force, or to handle it
realistically. Among other things, American liberals have an
obsessive fear that the use of their nation's power will offend
world opinion.
But, human nature being what it is, there are often clashes
that cannot be resolved by discussion and compromise. Force
has always been a normal and natural ingredient of every human
society-for the maintenance of internal order and protection
against external threat-and this will continue to be the reality.
But since this is a pessimistic view of human affairs, it does not
harmonize with the wishful thinking of most liberals. They shy
away as much and as long as possible from the application of
force, and when its use becomes unavoidable, they plan it badly
and apply it erratically.
Their tendency is to employ power as an instrument of bluff.
An example of this, if James Reston of The New York Times
correctly reports a conversation with President Kennedy, is the
manner in which the United States became militarily involved in
Southeast Asia. Kennedy, according to Reston, said that it was
necessary to make American power "credible" to the Russians,
so the war in Vietnam was intensified, "not because the situation
6 Ibid., p. 209.
on the ground demanded it" but because the President "wanted
to prove a diplomatic point, not a military point." 7
Internally, when minority groups resort to violence to attain
their objectives, liberals try to avoid using counter-force. And
when the conduct of a minority group reaches limits that pro
voke the use of counter-force and some demonstrators get hurt,
it is the police and the authorities who are termed the aggressors.
In external relations, simil~rly, liberals seldom apply the right
amount of force at the right time.
The classic example of this, of course, is Cuba. The way in
which the force available to the United States was mishandled at
the Bay of Pigs is utterly beyond comprehension. President Ken
nedy, under the influence of his liberal mentors, used just
enough force to assure the worst possible result from every con
ceivable point of view. It hardly need be added that men who
understand force and its functions would have brought to bear
all the power needed to guarantee victory.
Dr. Milton Eisenhower has referred to the Bay of Pigs debacle
in these terms: "In the long history of the United States, this was
our worst planned, most capriciously managed action-and our
most humiliating defeat." He is wrong. The operation was skill
fully planned by professionals but later wrecked by liberal ama
teurs. Besides, there would have been no Bay of Pigs if the
State Department (under Dr. Eisenhower's influence) had not
ousted Batista and opened the road for Castro.
During the 1962 Missile Crisis, American power was again
mishandled. The armed forces were ordered to back away from
a confrontation on land and on sea. The Communists succeeded
in nullifying the vitally important understanding for on-site in
spection. Soviet troops and technicians remained on the island.
The Castro dictatorship emerged strengthened by the no-in
vasion pledge. All the American IRBMs in Europe confronting
the Soviets (in England, Italy and Turkey) were withdrawn.
The public was given to understand at the time that these mis
7 The New York Times, January 18, 1966.

siles were obsolete but no less an authority than General Curtis
LeMay now reveals that they had just become operational.
"They should have been left in place," he says.s
The fact is that, although it enjoyed tremendous power su
periority, the United States failed even to maintain the status
quo ante. In his address on October 22, 1962 President Kennedy
said that the greater risk lay in not acting-that strong action in
volved the lesser risk. But in the ensuing days he followed
policies of risk avoidance. To the adversary his restraint sug
gested fear, weakness, and ineptness. At home it widened the
gap between word and deed, and in the end weakened the
hemisphere by strengthening Castro.
Liberals had a greater voice in international policy during the
Kennedy administration than in any previous government of the
United States. Certainly theirs was the dominant influence in
shaping American policy with respect to Cuba. Invariably their
advice produced decisions for disaster.
3. Liberal ideology favors "democracy" everywhere, at all

times, and is unable to acknowledge the possibility that some
other type of rule may be suitable for a developing nation, unless
it be some form of leftist totalitarianism.
Liberalism has a passion for political and social innovation

and reform, and if the changes do not come rapidly, it favors
revolution to bring them about. In Latin America it looks with
distaste on the traditional caudillo.
Any Washington policy-maker who adheres to these views, I
am convinced, is not qualified to deal with Latin American af
fairs. As underlined in the Foreword of this book, the political
structure of Latin America is rooted in a past that goes back al
most six centuries and does not lend itself to rapid innovation. It
goes back to the earliest days of the great explorations, when
SCurtis E. LeMay, America Is in Danger (New York: Funk &

Wagnalls, 1968), p. 140.
Columbus established the first colonial government in the West
Indies and had the title of Governor, appointing all officers and
distributing land and natives to his fellow countrymen.
During this long period there evolved a traditional society
composed of four principal elements: A strong chief of state;
the military establishment; the Church; and the educated class,
which includes the so-called "oligarchs." If any of these four
basic ingredients of society are destroyed or greatly weakened, a
churning social disturbance results, and unless some strong
personality, usually a military figure or caudillo, steps in to
pick up the pieces, the Communists will take over and impose
their dictatorship, since their apparatus is there and always
ready to fill a power vacuum. 9
From the educated class and "oligarchs" come the teachers

and technicians, the political, industrial and business leaders, the
entrepreneurs. They want progress for their countries but they
feel that the transition to a better life for the masses should be
orderly, not disruptive, and that the maintenance of political sta
bility is the indispensable condition for attaining it.
Most of the millions of men and women who hope and strive
for social, economic and political progress for their countries
want "democracy," but they know it can be achieved only from
within, that its attainment is basically a personal and spiritual
problem, one that the people of each country must painstakingly
solve for themselves.
The basic issue, therefore, is not whether a government is
democratic and representative or whether it is dictatorial and
authoritarian. It is whether a government, so long as it is not
totalitarian, can hold a society together sufficiently to make pos
sible the gradual transition to a better life for the masses. to
9 This conviction is lucidly reiterated in James Burnham's Suicide 0/

the West, p. 282.
to 10hn Paton Davies, Jr., Foreign and Other Affairs (New York:
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1964), p. 57.
THE ROOT OF mE TRAGEDY 427
An example of the liberal passion for reform in Latin
America, geared to theory rather than practical considerations,
is the Alliance for Progress, Washington's answer to Castro in
1961. Under this scheme the United States offered to put up
twenty billion dollars if the Latin Americans contributed eighty
billion-and turned virtually everything upside down in their
countries. Although the program was openly hostile to the
propertied classes and the military who rule most of Latin
America, these were expected to be good sports and yield to
American concepts of reform of a magnitude and at a pace
that could have been accomplished only through bloody social
revolutions and with great risk of Communist takeovers. In
some countries the reforms demanded by Washington amounted
to incitement of revolution, which scared off the private capital
on which the Alliance had counted to contribute to the growth
process.
The end result was that no waves of reform swept the hemi
sphere. As originally conceived, the program would have been
resisted by the native establishments with violence if necessary.
Kennedy and his advisers were astonished to discover that the
Latin Americans. persisted in being themselves, determined to
defend their way of life against Communism in their own
fashion. Eventually Washington learned that the Alliance, so
consistent with liberal theory as originally conceived, had a
serious flaw: It couldn't work! It learned, too, that the plan was
resented as paternalistic. Whether. it has taken the lessons to
heart-in a realization that no one in Washington is wise
enough to manipulate traditional societies south of the Rio
Grande-remains to be seen.
The rulers of Latin America were entirely right in rejecting
this naive, self-righteous, and basically misinformed foreign
proposal to weaken or destroy their societies. They recognized
that any' short-range program of this nature, if implemented,
was more apt to hasten than to prevent the Communist conquest
of Latin America. Who would question that the rulers of Latin
America know their own people?
* * * * * *
More than eight years have passed since I waited to be fin
ished off by a Castro firing squad. But because the Gir6n in
vasion was then under way, presumably under American man
agement, I was supremely confident it would succeed. I took it
for granted that my impending death was a small part of the
price for the certain liberation of our country.
It all turned out differently. I evaded death-but Cuba re
mained in chains. I made a vow to devote my remaining years
to finding out why the Bay of Pigs undertaking failed. For this
inquiry I had some advantages. More than most exiles, I had
personal contacts with both American and Cuban men of affairs,
inside and outside of government circles, and I have found
them for the most part willing and even eager to help me get
at the facts. Necessarily, my explorations took me far beyond
the Bay of Pigs-backward to the primary disaster of Castro's
achievement of total power, and forward to the Missile Crisis
and other events since 1961.
This book is the fulfillment of that long-ago pledge. Its con
clusions will be rejected out of hand by doctrinaire liberals
whose opinions derive from ideological fixations; they are
normally immune to fact. There are no arguments to dislodge
firm ideological commitments. But even know-nothing liberals
must confront some truths that are not in the least theoretical,
if only to explain them away. They cannot wholly shut their
minds to the sharp decline of the prestige of the United States
in the Western Hemisphere following the Gir6n calamity and
the Missile Crisis retreat, or to the obvious dangers of a Com
munist bastion off the shores of their country.
Cuba is outward quiescent at this writing, but no one can

deny that it is America's most critical arena of confrontation
with Communism. The island nation is not under enemy threat,
as is South Vietnam. It is in enemy hands. It is not on the other
side of the globe but inside America's ultimate defense periph
ery. Which is more vital to the security of the United States,
Vietnam or Cuba? And which should be easier to handle, given
the will to do so?
The caves, the underground insta:llations, the airfields, and

the harbors of Cuba pose a military threat of unknown potential
to neighboring countries, including the United States. Equally
important, Cuba remains a source of political infection for the
entire hemisphere--even the streets and campuses of American
communities-an infection expressed in violence and contempt
for law and order. The mere survival 0/ the Castro regime is an
element of incalculable importance in the world equation. The
successful defiance of the United States from a stronghold in
its own back yard produces an image of Communist invincibility
and American weakness, which in turn encourages further anti
American campaigns.
There is uncertainty as to whether nuclear missiles are se

creted below the surface of Cuba, but there is no uncertainty
about the massive Soviet military presence there. The continued
forbearance of Washington, its failure to cancel out the threat
and immunize the center of a debilitating infection, raises signifi
cant and inescapable questions about American policy.
Does the United States simply have no master plan for ridding
its "Mediterranean" of Communism? Is it merely drifting and
improvising on this crucial front? Has Cuba been accepted as a
permanent bastion of Communism-part of the Communist
"peace zone" closed to American "interference," while the "war
zone" (the Free World) remains open to the waging of phony
"wars of liberation"? The Cuban people know only that during
the Kennedy and Johnson administrations the United States,
far from firming up its stand on Cuba, softened it, loosening
travel restrictions, and, most ominously of all, using its power
to prevent anti-Castro activities.
One other question inevitably comes up: Can it be that in the

settlement of the Missile Crisis, Khrushchev extracted from
President Kennedy commitments about which, according to
Castro, "not a word has been said"? Th~ State Department
denies any such commitments. To make the denials credible,
however, some explanations appear to be in order.
Why have the ten communications that passed between Ken
nedy and Khrushchev not been made public? Is it because, as
two responsible American journalists have written, Secretary
Rusk fears that the contents would "cause embarrassment to
officials who participated in the correspondence" and also would
"anger and excite anti-Castro groups in this country"? Clearly
the only way to remove the deepening doubts artd apprehensions
on this score is by releasing the entire exchange of letters.
A forthright American commitment to Cuban liberation by

Cubans-without interference by either the United States or
Soviet Russia-would change the whole political climate in the
Caribbean. And the elimination of the Castro government would
remove at least 90 percent of the Communist and other subver
sive pressures in Latin America. If a choice has to be made in
the United States as to where to take a firm stand, surely Cuba
is the logical place. That is where the nations face each other
most ominously and conspicuously, and that is thus far the
Kremlin's weakest and America's strongest front.
Yet, aside from occasional U-2 overflights and half-way eco
nomic measures, Washington refrains from employing any of
the several means at its disposal to restore and bolster freedom
in the Caribbean.
A firm policy would demand a reassertion of the Monroe
Doctrine, coupled with a credible determination that Soviet
troops and "technicians" be repatriated. Through every possible
channel the United States should assist and arm the under
ground inside Cuba and freedom fighters outside, encouraging
sabotage and raids and the establishment of bases for Cuban
rebels outside United States territory. It should quarantine
Cuba against the importation of weapons, even if defined as
defensive, and against shipments of petroleum. American sanc
tions on shipping should apply to all vessels of any line that
uses a single ship in the Cuban trade. The United States could
call for public support of a Radio Free Cuba and launch other
major propaganda efforts. Finally, it could organize a Latin
America Treaty Organization (LATO) outside the OAS, com
posed of nations prepared to join a task force patterned after
NATO. LATO could then help generate task forces for eventual
use in support of an internal Cuban liberation movement.
I submit that these are moderate and reasonable options,
when compared to what the Soviets would do if the circum
stances were reversed; that is to say, if the United States had
planted a military sanctuary in the Black Sea, their "Mediter
ranean," within a few minutes' flight from Soviet shores. There
seems to me no doubt that the Russians would have wiped out
the threat in a matter of hours. They are never deterred by
"world opinion," but act on a rational calculation of the odds.
The present stance of the United States with respect to Cuba
is less than a "do nothing" policy. It employs its power to pre
vent anti-Castro organization and activity in the Caribbean.
Theodore Sorensen has written that immediately following the
Missile Crisis President Kennedy ordered that precautions be
taken to prevent Cuban exiles from upsetting "the agreement." 11
What agreement? The agreement to remove the missiles and lift
the blockade? How could exiles upset such an agreement? Or
was the reference to a secret agreement to protect the Com
munist regime in Cuba?
One man who knew the answer to these disturbing questions
was Robert F. Kennedy, but there are others. Surely the time is
ripe for these to take the American people, and their traditional
friends, the Cuban people, into their confidence.
Against this background of doubt and vacillation, the chiefs
11 Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965),

p.717.
of state and most influential leaders in Latin America have ob
served the conduct of the United States in the Caribbean with an
increasingly jaundiced eye. Not long ago President Onganfa of
Argentina informed his cabinet and a group of national leaders
that in view of what has happened in the Caribbean their coun
try can no longer look to the United States for support in the
struggle against the Communist Empire. And it is no secret that
Onganfa and President Costa e Silva of Brazil are planning to
rescue neighboring countries if they should fall to Communism,
by joint military action independent of American participation
and without necessarily informing Washington in advance.
These are symptoms of hemisphere sentiment that cannot, in
the context of the Communist challenge, be ignored or shrugged
off by the most powerful nation in the world.
* * * '* * *
Whither Cuba?
There is no real margin for doubt that one day Cuba will
be free. Washington policies will hasten or delay its liberation,
but they cannot prevent it. Regardless of any secret Washington
Moscow understanding on the issue, the Cubans are certain to
throw off the yoke of Castro and Communism.
Many reasons lead me to this rock-bottom conviction, some of
which may not be spelled out in print. But the basic, all-embrac
ing reason is that the Cubans love their country with a profound
love, a love of the land, their good earth, and their traditional
way of life. We exiles give unstinting thanks to the American
people for their generous hospitality. Here we have found open
doors, open hands, and open hearts. But no Cuban ever forgets
that he is bound by ties of the deepest affection to his homeland,
and no day passes when he does not long for home.
One day, perhaps in the noonday sun in a crowded plaza,
Castro will be canceled out by a bullet, a knife, or a bomb. Or
perhaps, as in the case of Hungary, the people will simply take
to the streets.
Because the Hungarian revolution of 1956 was crushed by a
Soviet invasion, it is not generally realized that it was completely
successful within its own frontiers. Western journalists and dip
lomats had believed, until the moment of the uprising, that all
elements of potential revolt had been liquidated. The army had
been thoroughly indoctrinated; a large proportion of its officers
were Communist Party members. The former middle class had
ceased to exist, and youth had been indoctrinated by Leninist
Marxists teachers. On the surface everything was peaceful, and
by way of clinching guarantee, Soviet forces were stationed in
the country.
The explosion that came notwithstanding was unexpected and
spontaneous, unplanned and unled. Yet there have been few
modern precedents of a revolution that triumphed so over
whelmingly so quickly. Within three days the power had passed
to the people. The workers and farmers, the remnants of the
middle class, and even the armed forces joined the rebellion
almost at once. A large portion of the ruling Party itself went
over to the citizenry. The Soviet Union, unable to depend on its
military forces already on the scene, had to withdraw them and
replace them with more dependable divisions. The revolution
was crushed, but from outside, by a foreign invader.
Hungary taught the lesson that revolution against a totalitarian
state is possible. The larger the army and militia, the closer it is
to the people; the more it is likely to share their despairs and
aspirations. The size of Castro's armed forces will not necessarily
save the dictatorship and may, indeed, playa decisive role in its
overthrow.
Most knowledgeable Cubans agree that the liquidation of
Castro will be followed by a swift degeneration and collapse of
his regime. But the er.uption may well come before he is elimi
nated. When it does, everyone will say that what seemed "im
possible" had in truth been "inevitable." The future political
leaders will then emerge from the prisons and from among re
turned exiles.
Because the people have suffered so long and so grievously
under totalitarianism, the pendulum of Cuban history assuredly
will swing in the opposite direction-toward free institutions and
traditional cooperation with neighboring countries. The island
will once again join the family of free nations, to become one of
the most beautiful, most prosperous and safest countries in the
hemisphere.
Then the Cuban people will seek to restore their historic
friendship with the American people. When restored, it must be
a friendship based on mutual respect and the Cuban people will
only respect the United States when it has political leaders who
are capable of acting firmly and courageously in pursuit of
their country's enlightened self-interest, which almost always
serves the general interest.
Index
Abel, EIie, 358, 359, 363, 364, 378

Anderson, George W., 360, 366,
Abel, Rudolph, 325

367, 369-371
Acheson, Dean, 170, 171,355,358 Anderson, Howard, 37-38
359, 360, 363-364, 378, 389-393

Anderson, Rudolph, Jr., 352, 353
ADA World, 422

anti-Americanism, 61, 81, 115-116,
Adenauer, Konrad, 364, 392

188-189, 204, 408-409
Advisory Council, 92
Anti-Imperialist Student Union, 142
Agency for International Develop

anti-submarine rocket (ASROC),
ment, 332
370
Agramonte, Roberto, 89, 182

Arab-Israeli war, 383
Agrarian Reform, 98, 100-101, 198,

Arabs in Spain, 11-13
204, 236, 242, 404

Arbenz Guzman, J acabo, 251
Agrarian Reform Institute, 198, 253

Argentina, 52, 247, 396, 432
Agricultural and Food Situation in

Argentine Embassy, 204, 408
Cuba, 403
Argeta, Mana, 112
Agriculture Dept., U.S., 331

Armour, Norman, 145
Aleman, Jose, 81
arms embargo, 160-161
AlIen, Robert S., 388

Arroyo, Nicholas, 130, 131, 132
Alliance for Progress, 186, 427

Arteaga, Manuel Cardinal, 408
Almeida, Major, 236

Artime, Manuel, 321
Alsop, Joseph, 225

Associated Press, 141
Alto Cedro, 111

Atlanta Constitution, 204
America Is in Danger, 381

Atlantica, 292, 293, 296
American Bar Association, 131, 166

Atlantic Refining Co., 212
American Broadcasting Co., 376

Avianca airline, 145
American Expeditionary Force, 31

32
American Legion, 37, 38
Bacardi Company, 84
American Revolution, 46
Bagehot, Walter (quoted), 308
Americans for Democratic Action

Bailey, Norman, 129
(ADA), 262, 422

Baldwin, Hanson W., 290,357,382
American Society of Newspaper

Ball, George W., 349, 354, 355,
Editors, 194, 242

357, 358
amnesty of prisoners, 93, 118

Banes, 65-67, 112, 115
436 INDEX
Bank of America, 90 Blagar. 293, 296
Barbara I, 293 Board of Public Offices, 74
Barbary Coast pirates, 313 Bogota (Colombia), 141-149, 169,
barbudos, 179 172, 196, 244
Barletta, Amadeo, 224 Bogotazo, 141-149. 169, 171, 183,
Barletta, Amadeo, Jr., 224 240
Barnes, Tracy, 306 Bohemia magazine, 138, 242
Barnet, Jose A., 67 Bohlen, Charles, 354, 355
Barrientos, Rene, 256 Bolivia, 189, 255-258
bateyes, 65·66 Bansal, Philip W., 189-190, 196·
Batista, Fulgencio, 35, 42, 53, 55, 197, 203, 205, 211, 212, 213,
56·57, 58-72, 73, 75, 76, 77·79, 215-216,219,224,227, 232-234,
89·90, 91-93, 94, 101, 118, 122, 245, 249
124·125, 128, 130, 131, 132, 136 Bonsai, Stephen, 189
137, 138, 140, 149, ISO, 156·178, Bosch, Jose M. (Pepin), 84
180, 185, 187, 190-191, 192,215, Bosch, Juan, 195, 420
225, 241, 242, 245, 247, 249, Bowles, Chester, 262, 282, 353
252,273,411,421-422 Boxer, 294
Batista, Marta, 132 Braddock, Daniel M., 211, 212, 233
Batista, Papito, 69 Braden, Spruille, 79·80, 87
"Battle of El Arroyo del Infjerno" Brazil, 14, 15, 52, 170, 323, 420,
(Hell's Creek), 125n 432
"Battle of La Plata," 125n Bridges, Styles, 315
"Battle of Uvemo," 136 Brigade Air Squadron. See Free
Bay of Pigs, 19,21-22,32,44, 113, Cuban Air Squadron
238, 259, 261, 263, 267, 279, Brigade 2506, 272·274, 280, 292,
290,294,295,297,303·312,313, 296, 300, 307, 308, 312, 314,
329, 335, 336, 340, 342, 344, 318-327, 342
357, 359, 394, 416, 424, 428. Briggs, Ellis 0., 83
See also Gir6n Bni, Federico Laredo, 68, 72
Bayo, Alberto, 251·252 Bruce, David E. K., 363
Beals, Carleton, 129, 236 Buckley, William F., Jr., 267
Beaulac, Willard D., 142, 144, 146 Bundy, McGeorge, 262, 278, 289,
Beauvoir, Simone de, 129 290, 298, 310, 349·350, 351, 352,
Belgian Congo, 98·99 354, 355, 381
Belgium, 30, 98 Burke, Arleigh, 278, 294, 298, 301
Bell, Gregory, 287, 292 Burnham, James, 246, 426n
Belt, Guillermo, 146 Byrnes, Justice, 82
Berle, Adolf A., 278
Berlin Wall, 342
Betancourt, Emesto, 163 Caballeria Wharf, 72
Bethel, Paul D., 216n Cabana Fortress, La, 21, 72, 89,
Biran, 110, 111, 112 192
Bissell. Richard M., Jr., 270, 278· Cabell, C. P., 241n, 278, 290, 291,
279.291,298,301,307,310,337 292, 294, 301
blackmail, 193, 342-343. 376 Cabo Cruz, 120
INDEX 437
Caffrey, Jefferson, 56, 63, 64, 70, Cayo Piedra, 39
71 CDR (Committee for Defense of
Calderin, Francisco (Virulilla), III the Revolution), 409-410
CamagUey Province, 180, 199, 213 Central Highway, 399
cambiazo, 169 Central Intelligence Agency. See
Camp Columbia, 59-60, 62, 68, 69, CIA
80, 89, 286 Central Planning Council, 253
Capehart, Homer, 314 Cespedes, Carlos Manuel de, 59, 60
Caplin, Mortimer M., 317 Charleston News and Courier, 204
Cardenas Bay, 39 Chessman, Carryl, 38
Carter, Marshall S., 354 Chester, Edmund, 119
Casilda, 266, 269, 274 Chiang Kai-shek, 170, 389, 390,
Castillo del Principe, 320 422
Castro, Angel, 109-112 Chibas, Eduardo, 84, 85-89
Castro, Angela, 112 Chicago politics, 90-91
Castro, Agustina, 112 Chicago Tribune, 225
"Castro cell," 205, 211 Chile, 52
Castro, Emma, 112 China, Red, 196, 220, 238, 267,
Castro, Fidel, 9, 10, 16, 21, 22, 24, 401

28,42,43-44,47,51, 53, 56, 57, Chocolate, Kid, 66
58, 73, 74, 81, 92, 93, 94-95, Chokut Peninsula, 379
109-119, 121-134, 135, 136, 142 Churchill, Winston, 363, 416-417
155, 156-186, 187-216, 217-239, CIA, 37, 42, 138, 149, 151, 152,
240-258,263,273, 276, 277, 278, 172, 173, 206, 235, 237, 241,
279, 286, 288, 292, 296, 300, 246-250,251, 261, 263, 264, 265,
301,302,313-333,342,345,365, 268, 269, 270, 277, 278, 279,
385, 387, 389, 395, 397-416,420, 283, 284, 285, 288, 291, 297,
424-425, 429, 430, 432-434 299, 301, 302, 306, 310, 312,
Castro in U.S., 193-194 328, 329 332, 345, 346, 347,
Castro, Juana, 112 350, 351, 352, 384
Castro, Lidia, 112 Cienaga de Zapata swamp, 274, 295
Castro, Pedro Emilio, 112 Cienfuegos, 271, 287, 297
Castro, Ram6n, 112 CIO, 97, 98n
Castro, Raul, 93, 112, 113, 117, Civil Code of Napoleon, 109
118, 119, 126, 191, 207, 240, Civil Service, 74. See also merit
247, 251, 408 system
"Castro" Revolution, 47 Clay, Lucius D., 325, 330
Castro's Cuba, Cuba's Fidel, 399 Clemens, Samuel (Mark Twain), 90
400 Cleveland, Grover, 378
Catholic Action group,· 39-40 Cleveland, Harlan, 306
Catholic Church, 67, 165, 166, 175, CMQ radio station, 137
177, 202, 246, 407-408 Colegio de Belen, 115, 408
Catholic University of St. Thomas Colegio Dolores, 109, lIS
of Villanova, 407-408 Colombia, 142-149, 189, 249
caudillo, 16, 69, 425, 426 Columbia Broadcasting System, 128
Cayo Confites expedition, 81 Columbus, Christopher, 426
438 INDEX
Commerce Dept., U.s., 96, 99, 103,
Cuban Freedom Fighters, 43, 264,
329, 332, 403

265, 267, 387, 395
Committee for the Defense of the

Cuban history before Batista, 47-57
Revolution (CDR), 409-410

Cuban history, distortion of, 47
Committee on Overhead Recon

Cubanidad, 81
naissance (COMOR), 351, 352

CUban National Bank, 214, 250,
Commonwealth Club, 268

253
Communist Party (PSP), 73, 77, 92,

Cuban Story, The, 134
156, 244. See also Communists in

Cuban Supreme Court, 232
Cuba; Partido Socialista Popular

Cuban Telephone Co., 201
Communists in Cuba, 73, 77, 81,

Cuban War of Independence, 47-51,
83, 92, 126, 132-133, 172, 196,

105
202-204, 213-214, 240-258, 395 Cubas, Jorge E. de, 9-10, 69-70,
417
132, 151, 180-184,217. See also
concentration camp (World War

Lazo & Cubas
II), 77
Cuervo Navarro, Pelayo, 35, 137,
Confederation of Cuban Workers

138, 321
(CTC), 77, 80, 83, 97, 167, 225

Cushing, Richard Cardinal, 325,
confiscation of American property,

330
198-200, 240
conquistadores, the, 13-14
Consolidated Railways, 178

Daniel, Jean, 94, 95, 98
Constituent Assembly of 1900, 51,

de Gaulle, Charles, 363-364, 366,
52
392
Constituent Assembly of 1940, 69

del Pino, Rafael, 142, 143-145, 146
Constitution of 1901, 51, 73, 74,
147
90
democracy, failure of, in Cuba, 90
Constitution of 1940, 73-76, 82, 90,
91
92, 106n, 165,241,242, 319

Dennison, Robert, 366
Continental Insurance Co., 330

Desvernine, Eugene, 35-36, 38, 41
Cornell University, 29-30

Dewey, George, 46
Costa e Silva, President da, 432

Diario de La Marina, 200-201
Country Club Park, 35, 63, 137,

Dfaz Balart, Mirta, 115
Diaz Lanz, Pedro, 202-204, 213,
321
253
coup d'etat of 1952, 89
Dillon, Douglas, 172, 173, 278,
Covington & Burling, 393
347, 354, 355, 361
Crosby, Kenneth, 334

Diplomat Among Warriors, 223
Crowder, Enoch, 55
Directorio Estudiantil, .60, 64
Cuban Air Force, 119, 270, 271

Directorio Revolucionario, 137, 164
Cuban-American CUltural Associa Dirksen, Everett, 209, 304
tion, 88
Dobrynin, Anato!y, 350, 353, 368,
Cuban Army of Independence, 110

375, 387
Cuban Brigade. See Brigade 2506

Dodge, Joseph, 314, 315, 318
Cuban Families Committee, 323,

Dominican Republic, 81, 161, 175,
324,325,326,327,329,331,332
180, 195, 396, 419, 420
INDEX 439
Donnelly, Walter J., 70
tional Security Council (EltCom),
Donovan, James, 325-327, 328,

353-362, 364, 375, 380-381, 392
329, 330, 332-333

Export-nnport Bank, 194
Dortic6s Torrado, Osvaldo, 204,

expropriation, 198-200
205
Draper, Theodore, 405
drugs as ransom, 328-329, 332

Fair Play for Cuba Committee,
Dubois, Jules, 225

129, 236-237
Dulles, Allen, 149, 172, 248, 249,

Fangio, Juan Manuel, 158
278, 307, 310

Fannin, Paul, 318
Dulles, John Foster, 146, 220

Farias, Matias, 299
Farley, James A., 325
farming in Cuba, 99, 121, 198,242,
Echeverria, Jose Antonio, 137, 138

402-405
Economic and Social Development

FBI, 26, 37, 87, 151,206,237,249
Plan, 100, 102-103

Federal Trade Commission, 393
Economic and Technical Mission

Finlay, Carlos, 54
report, 96-97
Flying Tigers, 170
economy, dislocation of, 225, 400 Fomin, Alexander S., 376-377
402, 405-406
Foreign Relations Committees, 242,
education, 68, 69, 105-106, 414

333
Eichmann, Adolph, 315

Fort Meade, 264
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 147, 149,

Fourteenth of June Movement, 195
170, 171-172, 173, 174, 175,202,

France, 52, 218, 313, 363, 366
203,227,228,249,264,265,266
Franco, Francisco, 70, 171, 251,
Eisenhower, Milton, 147-148, 154,

421
206, 314, 316, 317-318,419-420,

Frank, Waldo, 129
424
Free Cuban Air Squadron, 269,
EI Encanto department store, 42,

270, 271, 272, 275, 280, 281,
238,277
286, 287, 288, 290, 291, 297,
El Mundo, 224
299
EI Salvador meeting, 196

Freeport Sulphur Co., 230
Emblems 01 a Season of Fury, 104

Freyre, Emesto, 325
England, 14, 15, 16, 40, 365, 368,

Frost, Robert, 343
381, 384, 424

Fritchey, Clayton, 306
Escambray Mountains, 164, 265,

F Street Club, 220n
307
Fulbright, J. William, 278, 279,
Espin, Vilma, 247

282, 307, 365
Esquire magazine, 391
Essex, 294
Esso, 212, 226

G-2 Secret Police, 19, 21, 28, 34,
Estrada Palma, Don Tomas, 53,

36, 41, 149, 236, 399
54,79, 179
Gadea, Hilda, 251, 252
executions, 191-193. See also: pore

Gaitan, Jorge Eliecer, 141, 142
d6n
gambling casinos, 104
Executive Committee of the Na Garcia, Calixto, 48
440 INDEX
Gardner, Arthur, 139
Gutierrez, Pincho, 66
General Motors, 224
Geritol, 393
Gill, William J;, 210

Habana Libre Hotel, 236
Hacienda Sevilla, 149, 150
Gilpatric, Roswell, 340-341, 350,
Haiti,420
354, 355, 369, 381
Hallenborg, Charles, 139
Giron, 259-279, 281, 292, 293, 294,
Happy Valley, 280, 285, 286 287
295, 297, 300, 303-312, 428

292 ' ,
Glawe, Benoid, 207
Goldwater, Barry, 309, 315, 348

Harding, Warren G., 55
Harriman, Averell, 374
Gomez, Maximo, 47, 48, 53
Harvard University, 53, 194, 310
Gomez, Miguel Mariano, 68, 69
Haselden, Kyle, 129
Gonzalez, Lina Ruz, 112, 114, 115
Havana Bar Association, 193
Gonzalez, Angel A., 76
Gonzalez Corzo, Rogelio, 301

Havana-Cardenas road, 20
Havana-Hilton Hotel, 103 182
Goodwin, Richard N., 278 283

226 ' ,
316 ' ,
Havana Post, 141, 191
"Government of Unity," 165
Havana, University of, 39, 81, 116,
Grace Line, 250, 254
137, 150, 164, 244
Gran Cayman, 286
health, public, 107
granjas del pueblo, 403
Hell's Creek battle, 125n
Granma, 118-119, 121, 252, 257
Henderson, Loy, 197
Grasse, Admiral de, 46
Herrera, Gonzalo, 299
Grau San Martin, Ramon 60 61
Hershey mill, 238, 301
62, 63, 64, 73, 75, 76, 79, 80, 92:
Herter, Christian A., 174, 194, 210
105, 167, 168
Hevia, Carlos, 64, 77,89
Green, Elinor, 305-306
Hevia, Gustavo, 114
Gromyko, Andrei, 354
Heyser, Richard S., 352
Guam, 50
Hill, Robert C., 185, 195·198 206
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, 55,
Hilsman, Roger, 308-309, 345.346,
65, 260, 335, 361, 385, 389
347, 354, 377
Guaro, 112
Hilton, Ronald, 268
Guatemala, 87, 238, 251, 264, 268,
Hines, Jerome, 374
280,301
Hispanic·American Report, 267
Giiell, Gonzalo, 175
History Will Absolve Me, 118, 241
guerrilla warfare, 119, 220, 252

Hoffman, Wendell, 128
253, 256-257, 269
Holland, 14
Guevara, Alfredo, 142, 143-148
Holland, Henry, 174
Guevara, Emesto "Che," 119, 124,
Hruska, Roman L., 185
136, 178·179, 195, 214, 220,
Hubbard, Elbert, 48
221,228, 240,247,250-258,401
Hungary, 41, 340, 342, 348, 432
402, 403
433
Guggenheim, Harry F., 55, 130·
132, 154
Guiral, Enrique, 21
ICBM (intercontinental ballistic
Guiteras, Antonio, 61
missile), 338, 341, 351, 355
INDEX 441
Imprenta Nacional, 219·220 Katzenbacb, Nicholas, 330
India, 170 Keating, Kenneth B., 155, 185, 347,
Indians, 14, 15, 104 348

Indo·China War, 267 Kennedy, Edward M., 210
industry in Cuba, 102, 107, 108 Kennedy, John F., 43, 53, 94·95,
Internal Revenue Service, U.S., 317, 98, 116, 208, 210, 229, 234-235,
327, 328, 332, 393 237, 260: 263·264, 265·266, 269,
International Bank for Reconstruc· 274, 278, 279, 282, 283, 284,
tion Report, 96·97 285, 289, 291, 294, 296, 297,
International Labor Organization, 298·299, 304·312, 313-333, 334·
97·98 344, 347-366, 367, 370, 371,372,
In the Nation: 1932-1966, 311 373·394, 397, 414-415, 423-424,
invasion. See Bay of Pigs; Giron 425, 427, 430, 431
Invisible Government, The, 304 Kennedy, Robert F., 303-305, 311,
IRBM (intermediate-range ballistic
323, 324, 325, 327-331, 343, 350·
missile), 339, 348, 381, 424
351, 353,354, 355, 357-359, 368,
Isle of Pines prison, 118, 241, 320
380, 382, 383, 387, 389, 391
Issues and Answers, 349 392, 431
Italian Embassy, 41, 43, 224, 278, Khrushchev, Nikita, 228, 229, 243,
319 334, 335, 336, 339-344, 350, 353,
Italy, 41, 381, 382, 383, 384, 424 354, 356, 358, 362, 364, 366,
Ivanov, Eugene, 373, 374 367, 368, 370, 372-375, 377, 378,
379, 380, 381, 384, 387, 394,
397, 415, 422, 430 .
Jackson, C. D., 132,243 Killian Committee on Surprise At
Jamaica, 120 tack, 336
James, Robert L., 90-91 King Ranch, 199
Javits, Jacob, 326 Kirk, Betty, 160
Jefferson, Thomas, 313 Kirkpatrick, Lyman, 268
Jews in Spain, 11-12 Knox, William, 373-374
John R. Pierce, 372 Kohler, Foy, 354
Johnson, Kelly, 337 Korean War, 89, 92, 267, 390
Johnson, Lyndon B., 267, 298, Kraslow, David, 304
354, 387, 415, 419, 420 Krock, Arthur, 310-311
Jobnson, U. Alexis, 350 Kuquine, 84, 158
Joint Chiefs of Staff, 261, 263,
264, 265, 266, 269, 278, 284,
labor, 97-98, 200, 201, 225-226,
285,297,299,306,310,311,359 250, 406-407
Jones, John Paul, 371 labor camps, 411
Jones, Roger W., 208 La Cabana Fortress, 21, 72, 89, 192
Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., 372 La Coubre, 223
Jungle Warfare School, 265 La Epoca department store, 237
Jupiter bases. See England; Italy; Lafayette, Marquis de, 46
Turkey La Bora, 268
Justice Department, U.S., 327 Land, E. H., 337
442 INDEX
Laos, 342 354, 355-357, 360, 361, 362, 365,
Lapham, Lewis, 250 368, 369-371, 376, 381, 389, 392
Las Villas Province, 252 Magoon, Charles E., 54
Latin America, colonization, 10-17 Maine, battleship, 46, 48
Latin American Treaty Organiza Mallory, Leslie, 173
tion (LATO), 431 "Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra,"
"Law of Labor Justice," 407 242
Lazo, Blanche, 28 Manila Bay, Battle of, 46, 49
Lazo, Carlos. 28 Mann, Thomas, 278
Lazo, Carmen, 19, 27, 35-36, 38, Manzanillo, 118, 123-124
41,42, 43, 44, 45, 184, 221, 222, Mao Tse-tung, 171, 220, 422
234,235,246,278,319,335 Marucla, 372
Lazo & Cubas, 10,77-78, 183, 189 March, Aleida, 252
190, 215, 230, 232, 393, 419 Mariel, 345, 346, 347
Leddy, Raymond F., 206-208 Marine, Jaime, 63
LeMay, Curtis, 360, 381-382, 425 Marks, Herman, 192
Lemnitzer, Lyman, 278, 298, 301 Marquez Sterling, Carlos, 73, 137,
Lenin (quoted), 260 138, 158, 165, 166, 167
liberal thinking, 80, 190, 192, 218 Marshall, George C., 142, 146, 170
219, 250, 395, 418-419, 420-427 Marti, Jose, monument, 101
Life magazine, 132, 243 Martin, Edwin, 354
Lippmann, Walter, 203, 357, 375, Martinez Sanchez, Augusto, 193,
380 321-322
Listen, Yankee! 129 Matanzas, 19, 21·27, 36, 42, 101,
livestock industry, 199 191, 275
Lockheed Aviation, 337 Matos, Hubert, 213·214, 253
Lockwood, Lee, 399-400, 410-411 Matthews, Herbert L., 58, 117, 118,
Loeb, Louis, 131 121, 122-135, 140, 143, ISS, 163,
Logan Act, 315, 325 168, 172, 175, 184, 185, 188,
Loginov, V. A., 374 202-203, 204, 205, 214, 222,
Lopez Castro, Amadeo, 77 223,225,233,246,256,312,398
LOpez-Fresquet, Rufo, 205-206, 224 Matthews, Mrs. Herbert L., 123
Los Angeles Mirror, 268 Matthews, H. Freeman, 63
Meet the Press, 243
Mendieta, Carlos, 64, 67, 71
McCloy, John J., 355, 361, 362 Menocal, Mario, 55
McCone, John A., 347-348, 350, Menocal, Pedro, 21
352, 353, 355, 361 merchant shipping, Russian, 388·
Maceo, Antonio, 47-48 389
Maceo, Marcos, 47-48 merit system, 54, 74. See also Civil
McGill, Ralph, 203 Service
Machado, Gerardo, 55-56, 59, 82, Merton, Thomas, 103-104
113, 131 Message to Garcia, A, 48
McKinley, William, 49 Mestre brothers, 86
Macmillan, Harold, 363, 366, 373 Mexico, 50, 91, 118, 119, 195, 196,
McNamara, Robert, 298, 350, 352, 206, 221, 251, 257
INDEX 443
Miami Cuban Refugee Center, 413

New York Times Index, 127
Miami Herald, 204

New York Times News Service,
Mikoyan, Anastas, 220-223, 386

127
Military Defense Assistance Pro Nicaragua, 270, 271, 272, 280,
gram (MDAP), 161-163

288, 299, 303, 420
Mills, C. Wright, 96, 129

Nicaro Nickel Plant, 33, 78, 102,
Ministry of Education, 105-106

229-230, 389
Miramar, 236, 302

nickel, 229-230
Miro Cardona, Jose, 181

Ninth International Conference of
Missile Crisis, 234, 259, 263, 327,

'f the American States, 142, 146,
334-394, 395, 424, 428

170
Moncada Army Post, 116, 117,

Nipe Bay, 65, 389
192, 241, 244

Niquero, 118
Monroe Doctrine, 40, 52, 358, 378,

Nitze, Paul, 278, 355, 356
430
Nixon, Richard, 131, 206, 234,
montunos, 121, 151, 256

235, 270, 309, 333, 348, 394
Moors in Spain, 11-13

"no invasion" pledge, 386-387, 389,
Morro Castle, 51
391, 412, 414-415
MRBM (medium range ballistl!

"non-intervention," 166-167
missile), 346, 360, 361, 381

Norweb, Emery May, 85
Mujal, Eusebio, 167-168

Norweb. R. Henry, 85
Murphy, Robert, 170, 220, 223

Nuevo Vedado, 112
Murrow, Edward R., 129, 284
OAS. See Organization of Ameri

Nation, The, 160, 268
can States
National Bar Association, 193

Oberdorfer. Louis F., 327
National Broadcasting Co., 129,

O'Donnell, Kenneth, 354
191
Office of Caribbean and Mexican
National Hotel, 60, 62, 226

Affairs, 147
National Press Club, 210, 243

Office of Middle American Affairs,
National Security Council (NSC) ,

147
350, 392
Ohio State Reformatory, 128
Naval Intelligence, U.S., 370

Onganla, President, 432
Navy Command Center, 368, 369

Operation Pluto, 269, 271, 272,
371
278, 279, 288, 291, 298
Negroes in Latin America, 14, 113
Orde~l of Otto Otepka, The, 210
New Republic, The, 95
New York Daily News, 164,262

Orgarlization of American States
New York Herald Tribune, 133,

(OAS), 131, 167, 177, 196, 197,
179, 189, 362

335,420
New York Times, The, 58, 95, 119,

Oriente Province, 110, 118, 163,
121, 122-.135, 155, 159, 160, 168,

179, 191, 199. 236, 240, 409
185, 202-203, 204, 205, 210,212,

Ormsby Gore, David (Lord Har
222, 225, 238, 246, 268, 290,

lech), 365, 368
342, 357, 362-363, 398, 415

Ortodoxo Party. 84, 88, 92
444 INDEX
Ospina Perez, Mariano, 142, 144,
Platt, Orville H., 51
146
Plattsburg, N.Y., 30
Otepka, Otto F., 208-210

Playa Giron. See Giron; Bay of
Ovares Herrera, Enrique, 142, 143 Pigs
148
Plaza Civica, 101
Overseas Press Club, 133

Point Zulu, 293
Owens-lllinois plant, 102

Polaroid Company, 337
Portel Vila, Herminio, 88
Portugal, 14, IS, 16, 422
Paar, Jack, 129

posadas, 400
Pais, Frank, 136

Powell, Adam Clayton, 159
Palace assault, 136-137, 138

Powers, Francis Gary, 325, 337,
Panama, 264, 265, 301

352
Panama expedition, 195

Prema Latina, 219, 252
Pan American Airways, 113, 120

Prensa Libre, 201
Papal Nuncio, 165, 177

Preston mill, 64, 65, 66-67
"paper tiger," 267, 312

Prio Socarras, Carlos, 75, 76, 82,
paredon, 26, 36
84, 86·88, 101, 118, 137, 157
Parque Central, 221
158, 162, 163, 181, 244
Partido Socialista Popular (PSP),

prisoners, political, 410-41 1. See
77,241-242. See also Communist

also ransom of prisoners
Party
Profiles in Courage, 234
Pawley, William D., 144-145, 169 "Project X," 327
115,249
prostitution, 105,400
Pearl Harbor, 76, 358, 391

Puerto Cabezas (Nicaragua), 269,
peasants, 120-121, 135

280
Pedraza, Jose, 63, 76

Puerto Rico, 49, 50, 227
Penkovskiy, Oleg, 339-340
Perez Servantes, Enrique, 117
Per6n, Juan, 247, 251, 252

racial problem, 113
Pershing, John J., 31-32

Radio Free Cuba, 431
Peru, 170, 238

Radio Moscow, 380, 384, 391
Pessino, Clara Park, 141

Radziwill, Lee, 325
Pharmaceutical Medical Associa Rainbow Division, 343
tion, 329
ransom of prisoners, 313-333
Philby, Harold R. (Kim), 340
Rashilov, Sharaf R., 416
Philip II of Spain, 13, 52
Reader's Digest, 235
Philippines, 49, 50, 51, 227
real estate, Cuban, 101
Phillips, Ruby Hart, 123, 222
Pico Turquino. 241

Reciprocity Treaty, 67
Pike, James A., 325

reconcell1rados, 48
Pinar del Rio, 36

Red Cross, 328, 330, 331, 332,
Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 313

410
Pingree Ranch, 199

Reed, Walter, 54
Platt Amendment, 51-53, 54, 55,

Religion in Latin America, 12, 13, _
67
15-16
INDEX 445
Remedios, 346
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 268
Reminiscences of the Cuban Revo Saladrigas, Carlos, 77, 79
lutionary War, 125n Salinger, Pierre, 268-269
Reston, James, 222, 342-343, 398 SAM (surface-to-air missile), 346,
399, 423-424
347, 351, 352, 353
Reuther, Walter, 314, 315, 317

SAMOS (Satellite and Missile Ob
revenues, government, 103

servation System), 338
"Revolutionary Christmas," 236

San Antonio de los Banos Air Base,
Revolutionary Code, 37
77-78, 82, 286; 297, 303
Reynolds Aluminum Co., 102

Sanchez, Alvaro, Jr., 323-326, 332
Rivero AgUero, Andres, 168, 177

San Crist6bal, 352
Rivero, Felipe, 319

San Juan Hill, 46
Rivero, lose Ignacio, 200-201

San Roman, lose Perez, 322
Roo, Raul, 268, 288

San Roman, Roberto, 305
Roa Sierra, lUan, 143

Santa Clara, 123, 252
Rockefeller, Nelson, 309

Santa Claus, 236
Rodriguez, Carlos Rafael, 244

Santana, Carlos Rafael, 272
Rogovin, Mitchell, 332

Santiago de Cuba, 46, 49, 112, 115,
Rojas PiniIIa, Gustavo, 189

116, 117, 118, 136, 179, 191,
Romans in Spain, 11
192, 246, 286
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 96, 217-219,

Santo Domingo, 267
314, 315-316, 317

Sartre, Jean-Paul, 129
Roosevelt, Elliott, 217

Scali, John, 376-377
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 53, 56, 64,

Schapiro, Samuel, 129
72, 363
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., 53,
Roosevelt, Theodore, 46, 49

104,256,261-263,264,269,278,
Rosario (Argentina), 247, 251

282-284, 285, 289, 298, 306-308,
Ross, Thomas B., 305

309, 310, 328, 336, 343, 354,
Rostow, Walt, 298

374, 380, 386, 389
Rough Riders, 49
schools, public, 68, 105
Rousseau, Enrique, 293n

Schuyler, Walter W., 64-67
Rowan, Andrew S., 48

Schwartz, Ernest, 97n
Royal Bank of Canada, 324, 326

Scott, Edward, 191-192
Rubottom, Roy, 135, 141, 144,

Scott, Paul, 388
Senate Subcommittee on Internal
146, 147-149, 153, 154, 157,
Security, 148, 185, 187,202,208,
158, 162, 163, 167, 169, 170,
241n
172, 173, 174, 175, 184, 188,
Sergeants' Revolt, 58, 64, 105
197, 420
Servicio de Inteligencia Militar
Rusk, Dean, 209, 278, 279, 282,

(SIM), 137
283, 285, 289, 290, 291, 294,

Sevareid, Eric, 362
296,298,308-309,310,354,357,
Shangri-La, 294
360-361,363,373,377,378,380,
Shell Oil, 226
381, 386, 388, 392, 416, 430

Siboney Indians, 24
Russell, Bertrand, 372

Sierra Maestra Mountains, 118,
Russell, Richard B., 365

120-121, 122, 124, 128, 149,241
446 INDEX
SIM (Servicio de Inteligencia Mill· sugar industry, 54, 64-67, 99·100,
tar), 137 108, 227·228, 403405
Sixth Fleet, U.S., 382, 383 Sugar Stabilization Fund, 92
Smathers, George, 173, 242, 315 Suicide of the West, 246, 426n
Smith, Earl E. T., 53, 132, 139· Sukarno, 226
140, 146, 149, 152, 153, 157· Sullivan, Ed, 129, 164, 325
171, 176·182, 184·185,246,247· Sulzberger, Arthur, 130
248, 249 Superior Electoral Court, 74
Smith, Florence, 140, 184 Swift & Co., 62
Smith, Gilbert, 43 Swiss Embassy, 37
Smith, Louise, 43
Sorensen, Theodore C., 261·262,
269,306-307,310, 335, 354, 360, Taber, Robert, 128·129
383, 387, 391, 431 Taft, William Howard, 54
Sori Marin, Humberto, 301, 302 Tammany Hall, 90
South Africa, 422 Tass agency, 219, 367
Soviet Union. See U.S.S.R. taxes raised, 205
Spain, 11·17, 40, 47·50, 70, 170 Taylor, Henry J., 413
Spanish.American War, 46, 189 Taylor, Marvin C., 83
Spanish Civil War, 122, 251 Taylor, Maxwell, D., 305, 354, 359
Sports Palace, 318, 319, 321 Teatro Col6n (Bogota), 143
SR·71 plane, 337 Te6doli, Marquis and Marchioness
Stalin, Joseph, 382 de, 41
Standard Oil of California, 212 Texaco Company. 226
Stanford University, 267, 268 Thirteen Days, 382, 391
State Department, U.S., 87, 132, Thompson, Llewellyn, 355
135, 139, 140, 141, 149, lSI, Time magazine, 268
153, 154, ISS, 156, 157, 158, Times News Service, 127
159, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, Tito, 421
167, 169, 170, 173, 174, 175, Today show, 306
176, 177, 178, 181, 184, 185, Tompkins, William F., 157-158
187, 188, 190, 208, 209, 210, tourism, 103·105, 227
212, 220, 228, 229, 245, 252, Tractors for Freedom Committee,
265, 266·267, 282, 283, 284, 288, 320, 323
291, 308·309, 323,328, 348, 360, Treaty of Paris, 50
376,414,424,430 trials, 191-193, 321-324
Stevenson, Adlai, 262, 285·286, Tribunal de Urgencia. 117-118
288·289, 290, 296, 305·306, 328, Tribunal of Accounts, 74
354, 355, 359, 361.362, 375,380, Tricontinental Conference, 416
385,387 Trinidad (Cuba), 265, 266, 269,
Strategy of Peace, 234 274, 307-308
Strauss, Mrs. Roger, 130 Trujillo, Rafael, 81, 173, 195
Subversive Activities Control Board Truman, Harry S., 85, 170, 309,
(SACB),209 390
Sugar Coordination, 1937 Law, 100 Turkish missile bases, 361, 364,
INDEX 447
367, 374, 375, 380, 381, 382, Ward, Stephen Thomas, 373, 374
383, 384, 424 Warren, F. E., 32
Turquino Peak, 120 Washington Post, 203, 204, 362,
Twain, Mark, 90 375
26th of July Movement, 116, 126, welfare, public, 106·107
135, 152, 246 Welles, Sumner, 56, 59, 60, 62, 63,
64,71
West Indies Sugar Co., 111
U·2 planes, 279, 336·337, 338, 339, Westinghouse International, 373
351, 352, 353, 379, 415, 430 Weyler, Valeriano, 48
Union Carbide Company, 331 Whelan, Thomas E., 197
United Fruit Co., 64·67, 110, 111, White, Lincoln, 379
112 Why England Slept, 310, 311
United Nations, 131, 161, 167,229, Wieland, William, 135, 140-141,
282, 288, 289, 303, 305, 335, 145, 146, 147-149, 152-153, 154,
355, 361, 362, 365, 373, 375, 156, 157, 160, 162, 163, 169,
376, 380, 383 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 184,
United Press Bureau, 119, 184 185, 187, 188, 197,206·209,210,
Urban Reform, 44, 230-231, 236 420
Urrutia, Manuel. 188, 202, 204, WiIlauer. Ambassador, 197
213, 247 Wilson, Woodrow, 32
U.S. Intelligence Board (USm), Wine Is Bitter, The, 419
350, 353 Wise, David, 304
U.S. News & World Report, 303, women in Cuba, 399
365n Wood, Leonard, 49, 51, 53
U.S.S.R., 43, 77, 91, 100, 146, 196, Woolworth stores, 238
220, 221, 222, 226, 229. 230, World Bank, 194
239, 245, 246, 259, 267, 279, World War I, 30·32, 55, 107
282, 334, 335, 337, 341, 345· World War II, 33,76-78,200,230,
366, 367, 372-394, 404, 413, 423 284, 382
U Thant, 374, 377, 383, 385
Wright, J. Butler, 70, 71·72
Varadero, 19, 27, 36, 38, 44, lSI,

192, 224, 326 yellow fever, 54
Vienna Conference of 1961, 342 Yorktown, Battle of, 46, 261
Vieques Island, 294 Yugoslavia, 421
Vietnam, 267, 343, 423424, 428·
429
Virulilla, III Zaldo, Ernesto de, 35·36, 38, 41
Voice of America, 24 Zapata plan, 284
Zapata swamp, 280
Zayas, Alfredo, 55
wages in Cuba, 97·98 Zorin, Valerian A., 362, 375, 376,
Walker, George, 24 387
A FUNK & WAGNALLS PAPERBOOK
WHO REALLY PUT

CASTRO IN POWER? ..
WAS IT THE CUBANS
-OR THE UNITED
STATES STATE DE
·PARTMENT?
Mario Lazo
Dagger in the Heart provides the startling

answer. Dr. Lazo, one 'of Latin America's
most respected lawyers, reveals never-before
published- ·information about American poli
. cies that have given world Communism a
staging platform of fearful power in the Carib
bean. Painstakingly researched, this defini
tive account of the Castro era is -vitally im
portant to every lover of freedom.
"ALARMING, DRAMATIC, AND WHOLLY CREDIBLE.... He un

covers a veritable network of misinformation arid manipulation
which is as frightening as it is fascinating to read."
-Irene Corbally Kuhn, King Features Syndicate
"MARIO LAZO HAS DONE OUR COUNTRY AND THE AMERICAS,

IF NOT THE WORLD, A GREAT SERVICE in revealing for the first
time the real truth about why Cuba was lost to Communism."
-Walter J. Donnelly, former High Commissioner to
Germany and Austria, with 18 years of diplomatic service in Latin
America, 4 as Ambassador.

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A FUNK & WAGNALLS PAPERBOOK FSO $lA5

"Brilliant, amazing ... 'must' reading '.' ..

American Policy Failures

FUNK & WAGNALLS

A Division of Reader's Digest Books, Inc.

Born, raised, and educated in the United States, Mario

~'The Lazo book is superb.... The depth of the research

"By far the most authoritative book which has been

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-31632

This paperbound edition published 1970 by

Funk & Wagnalls,

A Division of Reader's Digest Books, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

--SENATOR J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT,

II Fragments of the Past 29

III Reprieve and Escape 34

IV The Brightest Pages 46

V The Rise of Batista 58

VII Facts and Fallacies 94

VIII Castro's Early Days 109

IX The Build-Up 120

X Cuba at the Crossroads 135

XI American Intervention 156

XII The First Castro Year 187

XIII Castro's Second Year 217

XIV The Mystery of Castro's Communism 240

XV The Invasion as Planned 259

XVI The Aborted Invasion 280

XVII Apologists at Work 303

XVIII Lives for Sale 313

XIX Missiles in Cuba 334

XX What Led to the Crisis 345

XXI Anticlimax 367

How did Communism succeed in establishing an outpost in

My law partner of several decades, Jorge E. de Cubas, who

The Iberian peninsula, which now embraces Spain and Portu­

Fragments of the Past

I am sure that man's most precious possession is his memory,

'" '" '" '" '" '"

1 Arthur Krock, In the Nation: 1932-1966 (New York: McGraw-Hili

Reprieve and Escape

When I approached the captain, he asked for my name.

The Cuba of tomorrow will owe a debt of gratitude to the

The Brightest Pages

1 Willis Fletcher Johnson. The History of Cuba (New York: B. F. Buck

Historians linger lovingly over the drama of battles and cam­

3 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thollsand Days (Boston: Houghton

4 Thirty years later Guggenheim would offer the same counsel to

The Rise of Batista

Close friends of Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, rome of whom

1 Herbert L. Matthews, The Cuban Story (New York: George Braziller.

I had first met Batista at a luncheon given by H. Freeman

Batista's decision to hold elections for a constitutional conven­

I met with Batista frequently during his first administration.

1 Herbert Solow. "Who's Going to Clean up Nicaro?" Fortune, June,

President Grau appointed Prio Socarras as Minister of Labor

Prio's government (1948-1952) enacted several construc­

During this period the chief of the American diplomatic mis­

The Iberian peninsula, which now embraces Spain and Portu

Historians linger lovingly over the drama of battles and cam

Batista's decision to hold elections for a constitutional conven

Prio's government (1948-1952) enacted several construc

During this period the chief of the American diplomatic mis

The day before President Kennedy was assassinated, Fidel Cas

26 Article 52 of the 1940 Constitution attested to the importance at

111 Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary to Investi

We cannot entirely dismiss Matthews at this point, as he con

In the spring of 1957 the State Department began making ef

'" Senate Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary to Investi

The Bogotazo occurred on the occasion of the Ninth Inter