In my write-up today on Stephen Ambrose's Nixon: The Education of a Politician, I'll talk about Fidel Castro, the Communist leader of Cuba.
Fidel
Castro replaced Fulgencio Batista as leader of Cuba on January 1,
1959. Four months later, the United States had not recognized Castro's
government, for the State Department wanted to recognize it, but the CIA
feared that Castro was either a Communist or one who was being duped by
the Communists. Vice-President Richard Nixon met with Castro for three
hours, and Nixon asked him why he did not hold free elections and cease
the executions of Batista's people, providing those accused of war
crimes with fair trials. Castro replied that he was simply carrying out
the will of the Cuban people, who distrusted free elections because
they led to bad government in the past, and who desired the executions
of Batista's people. Nixon's conclusion was that Castro was not
insightful when it came to economics but still had the gift of
leadership. Nixon believed that Castro was sincere, but was naive about
Communism, and he proposed that the U.S. try to orient Castro in the
right direction.
Ambrose says on page 516 that "Instead,
Eisenhower decided to try to eliminate [Castro]." Eisenhower in 1960
approved a program by the CIA to provide training to Cuban exiles in
Guatemala and to give them covertly the support that they needed to
invade Cuba, in conjunction with guerrillas who were inside of the
country. But the date for the invasion was being delayed, and
Nixon by this point supported the CIA's program to overthrow Castro and
"replace him with a moderate Cuban leader" (Ambrose on page 549). Nixon
was frustrated by the State Department's caution. While Nixon
was one of the few people outside of the White House's innermost circle
and the CIA to be aware of the program, he did not know about its
nuts-and-bolts, for he wondered what the CIA was doing that took so
long, and he thought that it was primarily engaging in rifle-training.
Moreover, according to Ambrose, the CIA was conducting "some harebrained
attempts to assassinate Castro", and Eisenhower may not have known
about these plots, whereas Nixon was in the dark about them (page 550).
Why
did Nixon go from proposing that the U.S. try to orient Castro in the
right direction, to supporting Castro's overthrow? There may have been a
variety of reasons, but the one that Ambrose mentions is political: If
Nixon could get credit for helping to overthrow Castro, then his chances
for being elected President would improve. Eisenhower was
reluctant to act, however, for he did not feel that the plan was ready:
that the Cubans had rallied around a leader to replace Castro, or that
the exiles were "properly trained or equipped" (page 590).
While Eisenhower was hesitant to impose a trade embargo on Cuba because
he was afraid of a hostile reaction by the Organization of American
States and Mexico, he finally agreed to the embargo after Castro had
nationalized 382 American-owned businesses in Cuba, and Democratic
Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was chastising the Eisenhower
Administration for doing nothing.
Indeed, the issue of Cuba was prominent in the 1960 Presidential election. In
the same way that Republicans in the 1940's-1950's castigated the
Truman Administration for losing China to Communism, so likewise were
Democrats saying the same sort of thing about Cuba going Communist on
Eisenhower's watch. Kennedy criticized Eisenhower's embargo as
"too little and too late" (Kennedy's words), and he thought that it was
increasing Castro's dependence on the Soviet Union for help. Yet,
Kennedy proposed "stronger sanctions" against Cuba, as well as an aid
program for Latin America and strengthening non-Batista anti-Castro
forces so that they could overthrow Castro (Ambrose on page 591).
Kennedy's
overt call for the U.S. to aid rebel forces to overthrow Castro angered Nixon. Kennedy was briefed by the CIA, and he may have been
told that such a plan was already in the works. Nixon felt that
Kennedy, by publicly calling for a program that Kennedy already knew was
being implemented, was "jeopardizing the security of a United States
foreign policy operation" (Nixon's words). (Interestingly, however, on
page 591, Ambrose says that Castro already had an idea that the U.S.
would soon try to overthrow him.) When the subject
came up in the fourth Presidential debate, Nixon essentially said that
Kennedy's support for the U.S. helping to overthrow Castro was
irresponsible: it violated a treaty we signed with the
Organization of American States not to interfere inthe internal affairs
of republics in the region; it violated the UN charter, which also
banned the U.S. from intervening in other countries' internal affairs;
that it would cost the U.S. its friends in Latin America and probably
receive UN condemnation, without accomplishing its goal; and that it
would invite the Soviet Union to intervene in Latin America.
What Ambrose says on page 592 is funny: "In
his long political career, Nixon made any number of predictions, some
of them amazingly accurate, but never was he more exactly on the mark
than in this case. The trouble was, he did not believe a word of what
he said." Ambrose is probably referring to the fall-out that
occurred after Kennedy as President launched a disastrous attempt to
overthrow Castro.
Ambrose says that Nixon should have simply met
with Kennedy privately and told him that he was jeopardizing a plan that
was in the works by publicly calling on the U.S. to take an aggressive
stance against Cuba. Similarly, Franklin Roosevelt in 1944
persuaded (through George Marshall) his Republican opponent for the
Presidential election, Thomas Dewey, not to reveal to the public that
FDR had been aware of Japanese movements before Pearl Harbor, for that
would inform the Japanese that the U.S. could crack Japanese codes and
read Japan's secret radio signals. Dewey stayed silent on this rather
than making it a campaign issue.
Nixon did not stick with
his public opposition to the U.S. helping to overthrow Castro,
however. Nixon implied that he supported something more than an embargo
against Cuba by referring to what happened in Guatemala: a coup from
the Guatemalan people. Nixon looked like he wanted the CIA to go after
Castro and assist a coup, and that drew criticism from some who actually
thought that Nixon gained the upper-hand by supporting non-intervention
against Cuba. Meanwhile, Kennedy himself backtracked as he denied that
he supported the U.S. violating treaties. While, overall, Kennedy's language regarding Laos and Cuba was quite bellicose during the 1960 Presidential campaign, as President Kennedy was much more cautious.