Cuba--It's Way Past Time For A Change

The Fiftieth Anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution will be upon us in a couple of days. In the spirit of New Year's Resolutions and the inevitable accompaniment of nostalgia, the Geek wants to take a retrospective view of US-Cuban relations and argue that the Cold War is over, the Cuban Revolution is a fact on the ground, and it's time for a change.

The Geek is ancient enough to remember the victorious entrance of Fidel Castro and the rest of his bearded crew into Havana on New Year's Day 1959. Like many of his age he had watched the progress of the rebels with supportive interest over the previous years.

Indeed many Americans cheered Castro and the 26th of July Movement as they fought rather romantically through the hills of the Sierra Madre against the inept forces of the corrupt and brutal dictator, Batista. The Eisenhower Administration had done much during 1958 to assure the success of Castro and Company. For example, the administration stopped the flow of military supplies and instructed our ambassador to suggest strongly that Batista and his cronies seek retirement somewhere (other than the United States.).

The Eisenhower Administration acknowledged both publicly and privately that there were good reasons to see Castro replace the kleptocracy of Batista and his buddies from the American organised crime syndicates. The Administration hoped but was never really sure that other, non-criminal investments and property in Cuba would be safe from expropriation. There were hints of an emerging consensus within the second tier of administration officials.

The consensus focused on the idea that should expropriation occur it would be accompanied by appropriate, fair compensation. Balancing this was the fear that the nature of the compensation, while actually fair, would be seen by interested parties as not being fair. The parallel was with events in Guatemala following the Arbenz government's seizure of United Fruit company property. The Guatemalan government had offered compensation based on the declarations of value made by United Fruit for tax purposes. Not surprisingly these artificially low evaluations were unacceptable to UF and the race was on to oust Arbenz as a "Communist Menace."

Virtually all Eisenhower hands who had bothered to scan the intelligence assessments of the 26th of July Movement leadership acknowledged that the Castro brothers, Che and others were Marxist. Some of the administration officials, again mainly those on the second and third tier, saw this as no barrier to normal relations. After all it could (and was) argued that the US had reasonably normal diplomatic and commercial relations with Tito's Yugoslavia.

In the opposing corner were memories of the "Who Lost China" attacks which had performed yeoman service to Republican Party political fortunes in the 1952 elections. How much worse it would be if the Democrats could in 1960 demand to know just who had let the commies into the Western Hemisphere.

The result was the Eisenhower administration's decision not to decide but rather to engage in a combination of watchful waiting and "correct" relations with the new Cuban government. The administration and the American public didn't have to wait and watch for long.

The Cuban Revolutionaries were a young, highly emotional bunch. But much more than mere boyish enthusiasm was at work as the firing squads plied their dreadful trade in the dry moat of Morro Castle as crowds yelled, "Parado! Parado! at informal open air trials of alleged Batista goon squad members The American public including many who had been pro-Castro were nauseated to say the least.

Firing squads were followed by the paper work of expropriation (with compensation in the form of Cuban government bonds) and waves of Cuban refugees. As the US found out in recent years from its experience in Iraq, refugees and expats, particularly those of the former elite, are piss poor providers of accurate and useful intelligence.

Goaded by the expropriations--or, to err on the side of accuracy, the mighty moans of those corporate and private entities whose financial bull had been gored by the Cubans and annoyed by the seemingly irresponsible actions of Castro during a visit to the United Nations, the Eisenhower Administration made a major error.

While the Ike boo-boo might not have been in the same league with that of George W. Bush and the neocon ninnies in 2003, it was nonetheless both large and long lasting in effect. The root cause of the blunder was the Administration's acceptance of Cuban refugee protestations to the effect that Castro was hated by the Cuban people and could be deposed. Easily deposed.

To make a long and very sad story short, the Administration withdrew diplomatic recognition, ended economic aid, and used its diplomatic muscle to isolate the revolutionary government. This masterstroke produced an easily predictable result. Cuba and Castro turned in the direction of the Kremlin. In turn the Russian bear hugged the island and its bearded, fatigue wearing leader to its warm and furry breast.

The 26th of July Movement and its Marxist leaders had not been some sort of syphilitic chancre on the body politic of the Western Hemisphere. The American attempt at strangling the revolution in its crib made it one.

The first Eisenhower blunder had been bad enough. But, it got worse. Much worse. And, fast.

In a classic case of how not to run covert operations, the Administration ginned up a bloated CIA operated series of hit-and-run attacks on Cuba. This was followed by the planning for the landing of a guerrilla force recruited from the refugee stream with the goal of fostering an anti-Castro general uprising.

Lest one get the impression that only Republican Administrations are capable of committing world-class acts of stupidity consider the next tragic chapter. The Administration of JFK proved itself both more persistently idiotic than its predecessor and more robust in its ill-considered actions.

Instead of cancelling the planned insertion of exile "freedom fighters: before they were landed in the Bay of Pigs, the New Frontiersmen beefed the exercise up to the level of a minor amphibious forcible entry. Compounding the chaos of error, President Kennedy tried to abort the operation as it was underway, thus assuring that it failed in a highly visible and humiliating way.

Neither JFK nor his younger, even more testosterone driven brother, Robert were inclined to allow humiliation to pass unpunished. The Brothers Kennedy went after Castro hammer and tongs with (c)overt operations, assassination attempts and finally the plan for a full-bore, all-out US invasion of the island which was ended by the killing of JFK in Dallas only months before the scheduled D-day.

It should not be forgotten that the overly muscular and completely unjustified exercises in removing Castro nearly brought about a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR in October 1962. The Russians stood "eye ball to eye ball" with us and "blinked first." This sort of thing is not a tribute to rational statesmanship.

The Republicans played the Cuban card as part of the successful Nixon era "Southern strategy" in 1968, thus giving the Cuban exile communities of Florida and New Jersey a political power which they neither deserved nor earned. As a result Cuba became one more "third rail" in US politics so that no reevaluation of the failed US policy of isolation and confrontation was possible.

Cuba soldiered on. Dependant upon subsidies from the Soviet Union it became a less than totally reliable Soviet proxy but nonetheless proved itself capable of causing much mischief in both the Western Hemisphere and Africa.

The collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Kremlin's dole, but Cuba and Castro continued on. The accomplishments of the Revolution were both real and secure enough to survive the years of economic deprivation which ensued. In the past decade Cuba has recovered economically to a sizable extent thanks to the rest of the world not being so politically fossilized as the US.

Fidel lingers on still making the occasional pronouncement. The Cuban people survive, even begin to prosper at least in some part. The Revolution has created, as the Israelis like to say, "facts on the ground." The time has come at long, long last for the US to get a grip on the facts.

It is time for a change. Without any preconditions or apologies, the next administration should enter into discussions with a view to normalising relations with Cuba quickly and completely.

Yes, the aging expat community as well as some of the children and grandchildren of the refugees will whine and moan. Yes, some of the Right will howl that the Obama Administration is "soft on Communism" or that it tolerates "human rights abusers" or some such irrelevant zaniness.

There are sizable benefits which might accrue to the US and its national interests by dropping the half century of lunacy regarding Cuba. Normalising relations would have the potential of impairing the new neo-Castroite regimes of Venezuela, and Bolivia. It would rock the born again Sandinistas of Nicaragua. It might even show the countries to our south that the US is capable of acknowledging and rectifying mistaken policy--a first.

Oh, for all those capitalists out there, Cuban waters cover sizable deposits of that much maligned but still quite necessary commodity--oil. And, there is one heck of a potential used car market down there. All those Fifties vintage pieces of good American iron are getting in real need of replacement.