At the moment of Fidel Castro's triumphant entry into Havana, Cuba on January 9, 1959, the charismatic revolutionary leader was a relatively unknown quantity. Many are surprised to discover that Castro at first enjoyed much popular support in this country. Early reports on the rebel leader featured positive, if sometimes guarded, reactions. Even Ed Sullivan, America’s premier show man, got caught up in the excitement. He journeyed to Cuba himself to interview the victorious rebel leader shortly after the latter’s entry into Havana. He was but one of myriad journalists who descended on Cuba to cover the exciting changes in the island.
In this series, Victor Gamma returns and considers how the US misjudged Fidel Castro. Part 1 on Castro before the revolution is here, part 2 on Fidel taking power is here, and part 3 on Fidel going to the US is here. Here, we look at what the US got wrong in its assessment of Castro, including how Castro waited until he consolidated power and the role of the US media.
Fidel Castro at the UN General Assembly in 1960.
How can we explain the failure of US intelligence to correctly assess the threat? Some, such as Earl Smith, blamed the State Department and the CIA. Later he wrote a book about his Cuben experience called The Fourth Floor. By “Fourth Floor” he meant the upper-level officials who determined US foreign policy. He accused them of the mindset “better a leftist dictator than Batista.” Thus, according to Smith, they took no proactive measures to prevent someone like Castro coming to power.
The CIA. indeed, were the nation’s first line of defense. The CIA is the organization supposed to analyze present and potential threats to US national security including threats to the Western Hemisphere. Especially, they would prevent the Soviet Union from gaining any foothold in this hemisphere and any Marxist regime from taking root. According to the CIA
“ … it is demonstrable that the Agency was far more perceptive than the policy-making bodies in recognizing the threat to the Western Hemisphere posed by Castro’s communist affiliation.” And, yet, instead of the CIA, it was many other individuals, such as Earl Smith, various Cuban politicians and some American who in the early days tried to alert about the dangers of Castro. According to Ambassador Smith, the CIA underestimated the communist threat in Cuba. He asked the agency to re-check its estimate of communist party strength in Cuba. However, he found that the Chief of the CIA attached to the embassy was more of a hindrance than a help. He found him so sympathetic to Castro that Smith would sometimes call him a Fidelista, only half in jest. The Chief of the Central American Bureau of the CIA visited Smith did share fears of the communist threat in Cuba but did not consider Castro himself to be a communist. Why did Earl Smith come to a different conclusion than the CIA: namely that Castro was dangerous - while the CIA wallowed in indecisiveness? It must be noted that the Kirkpatrick fact-finding mission was sponsored by Bacardi Rum with the goal of reducing American worries about Castro and his movement. Their interest was to maintain investment and business. It could be that the Kirkpatrick mission did not WANT to find out that he was a dangerous and unstable extremist. Smith had no such agenda. His goal was to determine if Castro was an acceptable alternative to Batista or not.
Additionally, evidence indicates that Castro was not an inflexible ideologue. He was first and foremost intent on maintaining the revolution and his own control. He ultimately decided the best way to accomplish this was to move the Island in the direction of hard-line communism. Within weeks after Castro’s return to Cuba, communists were openly serving in the Cuban government.
Waiting game
Before his power was consolidated, however, he found it expedient to keep any such tendencies quiet. Instead, he played a clever waiting game, introducing communist reforms and elevating communists to power gradually. He had used this strategy before. When fighting Batista’s troops, he once called for a truce as a mere ploy to buy time. A part of this long-term strategy was to keep his true intentions under the radar until he was strong enough. On his first visit to the US he purposefully brought along some officials whose views matched those of Eisenhower. This was a mere subterfuge. As was later shown, he never intended to allow these men any influence. He kept his distance from the Cuban Communist Party (Partido Socialista Popular) and downplayed the importance of communists in his movement. Castro was well aware of the CIA coup in Guatemala that had toppled President Jacobo Árbenz and replaced him with Trujillo. The Caracas Resolution also led Castro to exercise caution. This declaration firmly condemned communism and expressed a determination “to eradicate and prevent subversive activities” in the Western Hemisphere. Castro did not want to give the US any excuse to try a similar intervention in Cuba against him.
Furthermore, many people simply took Castro at his word. They took Castro’s reassuring statements of democratic liberalism at face value and based their support on these and their own idealistic aspirations. Despite Castro’s efforts to distance himself from communists, his actions during the anti-Batista struggle displayed unmistakable signs of extremist tendencies that should have informed US policy. They may have been more perceptive than policy-makers but they were, in hindsight, less perceptive than a number of Cuban leaders and the US ambassador Earl Smith. A more telling approach should have been based on his actions. For example, Castro repeatedly stated that his goal was a democratic government. But how did he actually treat those guilty of “crimes” against the people? During his years in the Sierra Maestra, he led raids against rich landowners. After a rigged trial they were executed and their lands handed over to the poor. This was not the behavior of a committed believer in constitutional rights but a Marxist dedicated to class-war. These incidents were either unknown or overlooked. Dean Acheson, on meeting him during his visit to the United States, for example, called him “the first democrat of Latin America.” This was a strange judgment coming just weeks after hundreds of Batista’s followers had been executed without a real trial by the in-coming revolutionaries. Others promoted the idea that Castro was an anti-dictator and was not under the influence of the extreme leftists.
Media
Another factor to consider was the media. While government officials fretted over Castro, the American news establishment fell over each other in adoration of him. They cannot be judged too harshly for this, after-all, any reporter worth his salt is looking for one thing: a good story. And here was a real-live bearded, charismatic, fire-breathing revolutionary, clad in combat fatigues, emerging from the mountain jungle to overthrow a powerful dictator. It was irresistible. Herbert Matthews turned him into a celebrity which captured the imagination of many, including some in the CIA. It was the American Society of Newspaper Editors that extended its personal invitation to Castro to visit the United States. All of this helped take eyes off of the disturbing facts of Castro’s actions,ideology and agenda. The guerrilla leader was presented as a champion of liberty, a reasonable person who had his heart in the right place. The great Edward R. Murrow interviewed the Cuban leader with a TV broadcast from Castro’s living room. Castro appeared in his pajamas. His son Fidel was brought out to speak to answer some questions. Expressions of friendliness towards America were expressed. The set looked like a typical middle class home, comfortable and homey, with Castro playing the determined but soft-spoken, doting father. Anyone watching would have a hard time imagining him as a brutal dictator. Ambassador Earl Smith testified to the Department investigation committee that journalists like Herbert Matthews helped to influence US policy in favor of Castro.
Moreover, rivalry within the revolutionary movement may have played a part. Rarely have revolutions been achieved without some infighting. Was it only the scheming of brother Raúl and Che Guevara that forced Castro towards Moscow? The differences between the more pragmatic Fidel, still in the US, and the ideologically-driven Raul and Che resulted in a power-struggle and threatened to split the movement. On April 24 or 25 Fidel and Raúl engaged in a loud argument over a long-distance phone. Raúl was overheard accusing Fidel of “being seduced” by “them.” Fidel made several public comments that risked undermining communist goals. Raúl and Che seethed with indignation and threatened to go their own way. Perhaps realizing that danger, Fidel decided to commit himself more fully to the communist/progressive agenda. Ultimately, he opted to abandon moderation. In December, 1961 he openly proclaimed his communist ideology, “I am a Marxist-Leninist and shall be one until the end of my life,” he proclaimed in a televised speech. While Fidel was in America studiously downplaying communist influence in the revolution or ties with the Soviet Union, both Raúl and Che were aggressively promoting both. As for Fidel, he was not yet ready to formalize ties with the USSR or even associate with the PSP. As late as mid- May 1959 his public utterances brimmed with goodwill and moderation. That May 10, he praised the American people for their “enthusiasm” and understanding of the revolution. He expressed the desire for good relations with all of America and condemned any attempt to export the revolution to other Latin American nations. If Eisenhower had made a serious effort to form an accord with him, some say, history may have turned out differently. This theory overlooks the influence of those like Raul & Che, who would have nothing to do with such an arrangement.
Soon, though, Castro dashed any hopes of normal relations. That July, the Fundamental Law or Original Act 425 made it illegal to oppose the Castro regime. It also gave him dictatorial powers. And yet it was not until March, 1960 that the US determined firmly on a policy of regime change. Although one may argue the rightness or wrongness of the CIA-sponsored coup in 1954 Guatemala, a similar action may have taken place to keep Castro from power if it had been implemented firmly earlier. For example, unlike the case with Arbenz in 1954, there was no skillfully coordinated plan including a serious anti-communist propaganda campaign which could have martialed support against Castro.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the US misjudged Castro because many of those who were in positions of power underestimated the communist threat and failed to read the warning signs about Castro. A large groundswell of support for Castro was allowed to build up. It is now clear that from the moment he came to power, Castro began to steer Cuba in the direction of a communist state, working with both old-time communists and more recent communist colleagues. After 1965, when Cuba became officially communist, Castro remarked several times that it had always been his intention to turn Cuba into a Marxist state. His denials of communism in the early days of the revolution, he claimed, were all a deception. An investigation involving a multitude of interviews revealed, decades after the Revolution, that Castro and his associates built a “hidden” parallel government, readying it to take power when the time was right. The US did not present a united front as to Castro. Those who recognized Castro as a dangerous demagogue vied with those, both in the State Department, the embassy at Havana and the media, that championed his cause. All indications are that Castro never intended to do anything other than establish a dictatorship in Cuba. Unfortunately for Cuba and the World, this reality was recognized too late.
What do you think of US intelligence’s view about Fidel Castro during his early days in power? Let us know below.
Now read Victor’s series on whether Wernher von Braun was a dangerous Nazi or hero of the space race here.
Sources
Fursenko, Aleksandr and Naftali, Timothy One Hell of a Gamble
Krushchev, Castro, Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1958-1964,New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Smith, Earl E, The Fourth Floor, An Account of the Castro Communist Revolution. New York: Random House, 1962.
Central Intelligence Agency 1961 Psychiatric Personality Study of Fidel Castro
Dispatch From the Consulate at Santiago de Cuba to the Department of State describing conditions immediately after the fall of Batista, Jan 6-14, 1959.
Dispatch From the Embassy in Cuba to the Department of State, Havana, September 26, 1958 Subject: 1958 Elections: Electoral Outlook Six Weeks Prior to Elections.
"Myths of the enemy: Castro, Cuba and Herbert l. Matthews of the New York times," Anthony DePalma Working Paper #313 - July 2004
Face the Nation with Fidel Castro, in Cuba broadcast on January 11, 1959.
