BARACUTEY CUBANO

(Parte 1)

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INTRODUCTION

The fundamental question of when Fidel Castro became a communist has had a profound and enduring impact on the foreign policy of the United States . From December 1956, the time Castro landed his armed expedition from Mexico against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista; to Batista's downfall on January 1, 1959; to President Eisenhower's approval of covert action against the Castro regime in March of 1960;(1) the U.S. ostensibly pursued a policy of non-intervention in the Caribbean area and the Western Hemisphere as a whole. Conceivably, the U.S. could have invoked the Rio Treaty(2) at any point during this time period given the information available to official Washington concerning Castro's involvement with international communism and the threat it posed to the national security interests of the United States.(3)

During this post-World War II period commonly referred to as the Cold War, the Soviet Union had become America's principal adversary. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's (1924-1953) adverse reaction to U.S. economic aid to Europe also known as the Marshall Plan (1947); Stalin's coup in Czechoslovakia (1948); the Soviet blockade of Berlin's Allied sectors (1948); and, the Soviet arming of North Korean troops before the invasion of the South ultimately leading to the Korean War (1950-1953); all of these events helped to shape U.S. foreign policy toward the inter-American region.

In an effort to secure hemispheric unity and mutual defense against the threat of Soviet expansion, the Ninth Inter-American Conference was held in Bogota, Colombia in April 1948, leading to the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS).(4) The strategic importance of Cuba, therefore, with regard to the Gulf-Atlantic-Caribbean shipping lanes, the Panama Canal, and the Guantanamo Naval Base, could not have been more compelling.

It is in this setting in May of 1960 in Washington that Salvador Diaz-Verson presented corroborative testimony of Castro's early links with the growing anti-Americanism of the Soviet Union before the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security.(5) Diaz-Verson testified about the destruction by the Castro forces(6) of the files he had created and meticulously maintained on Cuban communists throughout Latin America on behalf of the Anti-Communist League of Cuba.(7) This criminal act, which was widely reported by foreign newspaper correspondents in Havana the following day on January 27, 1959,(8) revealed the destruction of the Diaz-Verson archives more than one year before President Eisenhower's directive approving covert action against the Castro regime in March of 1960. Justifiably in fear of his life, Diaz-Verson fled into exile on March 19, 1959.(9)

Whether or not Fidel Castro was a "card carrying" member of the Communist Party(10) became the litmus test by which U.S. actions toward Cuba were determined. Castro's communist affiliations with the Third International for Latin America were not unknown; (11) in the events of the so-called Bogotazo, (12) ample evidence was readily available providing proof that Castro was an enemy agent of the Soviet Union intent on defeating the United States.(13) As early as mid-1957, former Assistant Secretary of State for American Republic Affairs, Spruille Braden, who also served as U.S. ambassador to Cuba from 1943 to 1945, gave an interview to the Washington weekly, Human Events, citing Fidel Castro's communist activities.(14)

Contrary to America's security interests in Latin America,(15) it became U.S. policy to: abandon a friendly government in Cuba,(16) fail to support a viable alternative to Castro,(17) and to prematurely recognize the Castro government(18) which was widely portrayed as a non-communist product of a democratic revolution.(19) Vice President Richard M. Nixon had expressed his concern over Castro's communism in a confidential memorandum distributed to the CIA, the State Department, and the White House following a three hour meeting with Castro during his visit to Washington in April 1959.(20) Castro's trip had been arranged by Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs, Roy Rubottom,(21) who was fully aware of Castro's communist leanings and affiliations having been posted in Bogota, Colombia at the time of the Ninth Inter-American Conference in 1948,(22) scene of the infamous Bogotazo.(23)

By the time Castro formally declared Cuba a socialist state on May 1, 1961(24) and proclaimed himself a "Marxist-Leninist" in a televised speech on December 2, 1961,(25) communist power in Cuba had been consolidated.(26) Cuba would not only provide a base for anti-American activities in the Western Hemisphere but the island would also serve to project Moscow's influence throughout the Third World further exacerbating Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.

In a 1987 book review entitled "Cuba and Its Critics," Saul Landau(27) referred to an interview he had had with Castro revealing his early dedication to communism. According to Landau, "Fidel Castro in 1968 explained to me that he had become a Marxist from the very time that he read the Communist Manifesto in his student days, (emphasis added) and a Leninist from the period when he read Lenin while in prison on the Isle of Pines in 1954."(28) This account coincides with Diaz-Verson's iteration of the destruction of the archival proof "of Fidel's disloyalty from his schooldays (emphasis added) onward."(29)

Scholars throughout the years unceasingly have debated Castro's communism;(30) the question of when Castro became a communist;(31) or, for that matter, if he ever truly was a committed communist suggesting Castro became a communist only out of pragmatism. Arguments have been presented contending that the United States forced Castro into the arms of the Soviet Union(32) and onto the path of international communism. Now, with the collapse of the Soviet system and the end of the Cold War, comes the opening of the archives of the former Soviet Union.(33)

Throughout this debate, Landau's highly credible account of his 1968 interview with Castro has been ignored. Even Castro's televised admission on December 2, 1961(34) of his own communist roots has been dismissed as "assertions" and described as "after-the-fact," and as "self-serving."(35) While Diaz-Verson's account of when Castro became a communist has been conveniently dismissed,(36) it has never been disputed or denied. Notwithstanding the destruction of Diaz-Verson's files, Castro's so-called "student days" or "schooldays" clearly span from high-school-to-university encompassing the 1943 period(37) designated by Diaz-Verson as the time when "the Cuban youth who had already entered into the Soviet Union's service and who received a monthly sum of money to cover their expenses began visiting agent Bashirov's residence" in Havana included "Fidel Castro Ruz."

Diaz-Verson, a distinguished Cuban journalist and intelligence officer, gathered evidence of Castro's connection with the Soviet Union dating back to 1943. His account of when Castro became a communist is of importance from a U.S. policy perspective; it is both historically significant and contextually accurate. Cuba established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in October 1942 with Maxim Litvinov having presented his credentials in April 1943.(38) Given that Cuba had the strongest Communist Party in Latin America at the time "regarded as a sort of Caribbean regional headquarters"(39) in which the "Soviet government placed a high value,"(40) it is not unthinkable that Castro did indeed come under the influence of Gumer W. Bashirov in the early months of 1943 as Diaz-Verson has described in his seminal paper reprinted below entitled "When Castro Became A Communist."

There is every indication that Castro would have been thwarted long before Batista's downfall on January 1, 1959. America's policy of non-intervention would have become inoperative had President Eisenhower discerned the extent of the communist threat that a Castro-led Cuba posed to the United States(41) as eventually was made clear by the Eisenhower-Khrushchev exchange of July 9, 1960. At that time, President Eisenhower justifiably evoked the Rio Treaty and declared, "I affirm in the most emphatic terms that the United States will not be deterred from its responsibilities by the threats Mr. Khrushchev is making. Nor will the United States, in conformity with its treaty obligations, permit the establishment of a regime dominated by international communism in the Western Hemisphere." (Department of State Bulletin, July 25, 1960, pages 139-140).(42) Had the Castro communist revolution been viewed less as a rebellion from within or as an insurrection against the established order as it was portrayed and more for what it really was, a Trojan horse attack by the forces of international communism led by Fidel Castro, then U.S. policy makers would have dealt with it as such and Castro, disguised as a democrat, would never have been successful in taking over Cuba. Instead, Castro's unhindered rise to power made U.S. policy appear indecisive and paralyzed. Diaz-Verson's paper provides the key in helping to understand when Fidel Castro became a communist; in its entirety it shows how the U.S. policy process collapsed from within and how Cuba was lost to Soviet-Russian influence for nearly four decades.
WHEN CASTRO BECAME A COMMUNIST


* Fidel Castro began working for the Soviet Union in 1943.

* In January 1959, he destroyed the evidence of his connections with the Soviet Union.

As soon as Fidel Castro Ruz learned that file "A-943" in our records contained irrefutable evidence of his connection with the Soviet Union and that those records also contained data which proved the communist militancy of his closest colleagues, he ordered their seizure. Those documents were seized on the evening of January 24, 1959 at the Vedado neighborhood of Havana. Fidel had just entered Havana surrounded by demagoguery, falsehood and lies and he needed to cover up, for the time being, his treacherous purposes. We knew and had the proof that Fidel Castro was one of Moscow's agents. We had been able to gather photographs, documents and reports indicating he was an agent for the Soviet Union although he was not a regular member of the Communist Party. And it was natural that the traitor would worry about neutralizing whatever could translate into evidence of his wickedness at the time of revolutionary and blind excitement.

Since founding the Third International, the Soviet Union divided its worldwide organization into two large sectors. On the one part, there appeared the Communist Parties, "facade organizations." On the other part, there were those agents directly linked to the Moscow regime who never were registered with the red groups in their countries of origin. The former were comprised of those who had to intervene in national politics, vote, run for elective offices and agitate their respective peoples through press, radio, meetings, civic and patriotic organizations. The latter were formed by foreigners, who never were meant to function as activists, as well as those who performed espionage, subversion and acts of deceit under different "covers." Those were the cases of Lombardo Toledano in Mexico and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. These persons, who acted on behalf of the Soviet Union, never appeared on the rosters of any Communist Party. Their work was directly with the Soviet government well above the communist parties or delegates. And Fidel Castro is one of those agents.

During the time we have been in exile, we have been gathering data, reconstructing reports, and recalling details. We are therefore able to offer a summary about Fidel Castro's activities as an agent for the Soviet Union since 1943 when he was only 17 years old.