How Effectively Did the USA Contain the Spread of

Communism?

BAY OF PIGS

Source 1

Interview with Che Guevara, Apr. 18, 1959

The only foreign enemies who oppose the Cuban Revolution are the people who monopolize capital and who have representatives in the United States State Department. The victory and continuous development of the Cuban Revolution has caused these people to panic. They do not willingly accept defeat and are doing everything possible to maintain their control over the Cuban government and economy and to block the great influence of the Cuban Revolution on the people’s struggles in the other Latin American countries …

Our revolution has set an example for every other country in Latin America … We have proved that an uprising can begin even when there is only a small group of fearless men with a resolute will …

The present indications are very clear that they are now preparing to intervene in Cuba and destroy the Cuban Revolution. The evil foreign enemies have an old method. First they begin a political offensive, propagandizing widely and saying that the Cuban people oppose Communism. These false democratic leaders say that the United States cannot allow a Communist country on its coastline. At the same time they intensify their economic attack and cause Cuba to fall into economic difficulties. Later they will look for a pretext to create some kind of dispute and then utilize certain international organizations they control to carry out intervention against the Cuban people.

Source 2

Khrushchev’s Speech to the RFSR Teacher’s Congress on Cuba, July 9, 1960

A few days ago the Governor of New York State, Rockefeller, openly called for struggle against the government of Cuba and Cuban people. He advised that a course directed against Cuba should be taken and that the regime chosen by the people should be stifled through economic blockade …

But the time when the United States diktat prevailed is over. The Soviet Union is raising its voice on behalf of, and offering help to, the people of Cuba who are fighting for their independence …

It is clear to everybody that the economic blockade by the American monopolists can be a prelude to intervention against Cuba. Therefore we must speak up in defense of Cuba and give warning that the imperialists can no longer rob and divide the world as they please …It should be borne in mind that the United States is now not at such an inaccessible distance from the Soviet Union as formerly. Figuratively speaking, if need be, Soviet artillerymen can support the Cuban people with their rocket fire, should the aggressive forces in the Pentagon dare to start intervention against Cuba. And the Pentagon would be well advised not to forget that … we have rockets which land accurately in a predetermined square target [8,000 miles] away. This, if you wish, is a warning to those who might like to solve international problems by force.

Source 3

Castro and Khrushchev at the United Nations, 1960

Source 4

“New President. Same collar, different dog.” Cuban cartoon, n.d.

Source 5

Memorandum of Discussion on Cuba, Jan. 28, 1961The meeting’s attendees included President Kennedy, the Vice President, the

Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Director of the CIA, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others.

The judgment expressed without dissent was that Cuba is now for practical purposes a Communist-controlled state …

The United States has undertaken a number of covert measures against Castro, including propaganda, sabotage, political action, and direct assistance to anti-Castro Cubans in military training. A particularly urgent question is the use to be made of a group of such Cubans now in training in Guatemala …

The present estimate of the Department of Defense is that no course of action currently authorized by the United States Government will be effective in reaching the agreed national goal of overthrowing the Castro regime. Meanwhile, the Department of State sees grave political dangers to our position throughout the Western hemisphere in any overt military action not authorized and supported by the Organization of American States …

The President wanted to know how the JCS felt about the prospects for success of a landing in Cuba by the forces being trained in Guatemala …

The Defense Department, with CIA, will review proposals for the active deployment of anti-Castro Cuban forces on Cuban territory, and the results of this analysis will be promptly reported to the President.

Source 6

Che Guevara’s Speech to Sugar Workers in Santa Clara, Mar. 28, 1961

We have to remind ourselves of this at every moment: that we are in a war, a cold war as they call it; a war where there is no front line, no continuous bombardment, but where the two adversaries – this tiny champion of the Caribbean and the immense imperialist hyena – are face to face and aware that one of them is going to end up dead in the fight …

We must remember this and insist again and again upon this fact: the victory of the Cuban people can never come solely through outside aid, however adequate and generous, however great and strong the solidarity of all the peoples of the world with us may be. Because even with the ample and great solidarity of all the people of the world with Patrice Lumumba and the Congolese people, when conditions inside the country were lacking, when the leaders failed to understand how to strike back mercilessly at imperialism, when they took a step back, they lost the struggle …

This is what we must be well aware of, that Cuba’s victory lies not in Soviet rockets, nor in the solidarity of the socialist world, nor in the solidarity of the whole world. Cuba’s victory lies in the unity, the labor, and the spirit of sacrifice of its people.

Source 7

“Castro Foes Call Cubans to Arms; Predict Uprising,” The New York Times, Apr. 9, 1961

The chief of Cuban anti-Castro forces in the United States issued a call to arms to all Cubans yesterday to overthrow the regime of Premier Fidel Castro …

Denouncing Premier Castro as a tyrant, Dr. Miró Cardona* internal unrest was growing rapidly in Cuba. He expresses confidence that a general uprising would take place …

Dr. Miró Cardona vigorously denied reports that his group had been backed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. He said it was formed “exclusively by Cubans and not just those in exile, but by the fighters in Cuba” …

Dr. Miró Cardona denited the movement was “counter-revolutionary.” He said he was trying to restore the ideals of social revolution discarded by the Castro Government.

The statement said that Dr. Castro … “betrayed Cuba by delivering her sovereignty to Soviet Russia” …

The statement accused “Castroism” of seeking to “extend its empire” over all Latin American countries under direction from Moscow.

Source 8

* Cardona had served as Prime Minister of Cuba briefly in 1959, before being replaced by Fidel Castro. He turned against Castro and his policies in 1960.

Letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy, Apr. 18, 1961

Mr. President:

I send you this message in an hour of alarm, fraught with danger for the peace of the whole world. Armed aggression has begun against Cuba. It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America. The planes which are bombing Cuban cities belong to the United States of America, the bombs they are dropping are being supplied by the American government.

Only recently … we talked with you about the mutual desire of both sides to put forward joint efforts directed toward improving relations between our countries and eliminating the danger of war. Your statement a few days ago that the USA would not participate in military activities against Cuba created the impression that the top leaders of the United States were taking into account the consequences for general peace and for the USA itself which aggression against Cuba could have …

It is still not too late to avoid the irreparable … I approach you, Mr. President, with an urgent call to put an end to aggression against the Republic of Cuba. Military armament and the world political situation are such at this time that any so-called “little war” can touch off a chain reaction in all parts of the globe.

As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, there should be no mistake about our position: we will render the Cuban people and their government all necessary help to repel armed attack on Cuba.

Source 9

Letter from Kennedy to Khrushchev, Apr. 18, 1961

Mr. Chairman:

You are under a serious misapprehension in regard to events in Cuba. For months there has been evident and growing resistance to the Castro dictatorship. More than 100,000 refugees have recently fled from Cuba into neighboring countries … It cannot be surprising that, as resistance within Cuba grows, refugees have been using whatever means are available to return and support their countrymen in the continuing struggle for freedom. Where people are denied the right of choice, recourse to such struggle is the only means of achieving their liberties … You should recognize that free peoples in all parts of the world do not accept the claim of historical inevitability for Communist revolution. What your government believes is its own business; what it does in the world is the world’s business. The great revolution in the history of man, past, present and future, is the revolution of those determined to be free.

Source 10

“Home to Roost?” The Washington Star, Apr. 19, 1963

Source 11

Speech by Fidel Castro, Apr. 23, 1961

The people know a great deal about the events which have taken place as a result of our special reports, the newspaper accounts and the interrogation of prisoners …

The aggression was indirect only in regard to the personnel. It was direct aggression in that it came from camps of the North Americans, that North American equipment was used, and that it included a convoy by the U.S. Navy and the participation of the U.S. Air Force …

We were awaiting … an indirect attack utilizing OAS to launch some type of collective action. And we also were expecting a direct attack …

[The United States] was not able to gather enough support in Latin America for collective action. The Mexican government has been very firm against intervention in Cuba. So have Quadros and Colombia. So the United States has encountered a powerful resistance among the governments and people of Latin America in seeking to further its desire for collective action in the OAS.

On whom could it count? Only on the most corrupt Latin American governments … Its partners in this venture have been the most reactionary and corrupt governments in Latin America, the governments of Nicaragua and Guatemala.

We have always been in danger of direct aggression. We have been warning about this in the United Nations: that they would find a pretext, that they would organize some act of aggression so that they could intervene.

Source 12

“CIA’s Bay of Pigs foreign policy laid bare,” The Miami Herald, Aug. 27, 2011

A once-secret CIA history of the Bay of Pigs invasion lays out in unvarnished detail how the American spy agency came to the rescue of and cut deals with authoritarian governments in Central America, largely to hide the US role in organizing and controlling the hapless Cuban exile invasion force.

The report … provides important evidence … that the most powerful people in Central American embassies were the CIA station chiefs.

Both the Eisenhower and Kennedy governments wanted to be able to deny responsibility for the invasion. So the bulk of the paramilitary training took place in Guatemala, with hundreds of anti-Communist Cuban foot soliders and their CIA trainers packed away for months on a remote ranch. Nicaragua would later provide the runway and launch site for the actual air and sea operation …

Leaders of both [Guatemala and Nicaragua] are shown in the documents refusing to take the heat for the Bay of Pigs at a time when the United States pointedly picked them in order to argue “plausible deniability” in the invasion of a sovereign country.