Fidel Castro's
26th of July movement took possession of Havana on January 1,
1959, finding a looted treasury and bankrupt country. On January 2, 1959, Manuel Urrutia became as President and
José Miró Cardona, Prime Minister. Fidel arrived in Havana on January 8th, walking across the island to great acclaim. The United States
recognized the new government. On February 7, 1959, Fidel's government passed the Fundamental Law of the Republic,
reinstating but modifying the Constitution of 1940, which General Batista had suspended
in 1952. Less than a week later, Fidel became
Prime Minister Cardona.
The United States had
tried to get Fulgencio
Batista, the dictator to resign the December before so it could install
a US-approved junta but he had refused. The 32-year-old Castro would not have
been surprised, for the United States treated Cuba as a satellite nation. That
would change quickly. It was not uncommon for Cuban politicians, especially
young ones, to criticize US policy in Cuba. Few took that seriously. Castro,
however, meant it. His goal was to make Cuba a sovereign nation not beholden to
any nation.
He had a long history of anti-Americanism. He feared US
intervention. The last time leftists had tried to revolutionize Cuba, the Revolution
of '33, the United States had used pressure to get a more conservative
government in place, with Batista as the power behind the scenes. Castro
and others blamed the United States for Cuba's economic and political ills,
believing that the US kept Cuba dependent, a colony in all but name. The United
States paid Cubans higher than the world price for sugar and gave it a
substantial portion of its sugar quota.1
Nationalists, such as Castro, saw the sugar quota as simply a means to control
Cuba and to discourage Cubans from finding alternative and more lucrative ways
of making a living. It was not surprising to those who knew him that he turned
down US offers of aid when he visited that country in April. The US, for its
part, adopted a "wait and see" policy.
Soon
after taking power, Castro took a number of measures that disturbed the US
government. He arrested a number of Batista supporters, held quick
"trials," and then executed many of them. He also arrested US
citizens. On March 3, 1959, Cuba nationalized the Cuban Telephone Company,
an affiliate of International Telephone & Telegraph of
the United States, and reduced telephone rates. On May 17, 1959, his government passed an Agrarian Reform Law,
which prohibited ownership of farms larger than one thousand acres, excepting,
of course, sugar and rice plantations which, by necessity, have to be at least
that large. The measure Americans because most of the US-owned land in Cuba was much greater than
that. Cuba offered to compensate the owners based on the amount of taxes
they paid. The tax assessments were thirty years old, however, because the
landowners had managed to get the government to keep them low. To their protests
in 1959 that their land was worth much more, the Cuban government responded that
they might be guilty of tax evasion. The US was disturbed by Cuban
filibustering expeditions in the Caribbean and suspected that Castro was
responsible.
Relations worsened in 1960. In January, the Castro government
expropriated 70,000 acres of property owned by USsugar
companies. One of those companies adversely. The
expropriation of United Fruit land in Guatemala in 1954 was one reason the
Central Intelligence Agency had overthrown the Arbenz government. President
Eisenhower asked for Congressional authority to cut off Cuba's
sugar quota. In February, Cuba signed a trade agreement
with the Soviet Union, which included Cuba buying Soviet oil. When the oil began
arriving in June, US (ESSO and Texaco) and a British-Dutch company (Shell)
refused to refine it. Castro contended that they had no choice if they
were going to do business in Cuba. They still refused. On June 28th, he
nationalized the refineries. On July 6, the US canceled all sugar imports from
Cuba. Castro responded on August 6th by nationalizing all US-owned businesses,
industries, and farms. By mid-September, Castro nationalized US-owned banks. On
September 18, 1960, Castro addressed the United
Nations General Assembly and protested what he called US
aggression. He stayed in a hotel in Harlem to show his solidarity with oppressed
people. His Urban Reform Law went into effect on
October 14th. It nationalized all commercial real estate and made housing
free. The
Eisenhower Administration responded to Cuba's radicalism on
16th by a partial embargo on Cuban goods.2 In
response, Cuba announced the nationalization of the rest of
the property owned by US citizens on the island. Castro also reduced the staff
of the US embassy to eleven to reduce the number of potential spies. The US
broke diplomatic relations and began to train Cuban exiles and others secretly
to invade the island in 1961.
Neither country trusted the other and the United States
refused to allow Cuba to govern its own affairs. Expropriation is legal. The
United States uses it, most commonly as eminent domain. That was not the issue.
When property is taken without compensation, then it is confiscation not
expropriation. Whether it will be confiscation depends upon the bargaining
skills of the diplomats. The refusal of the multinational oil companies to
refine oil would never have been allowed in the United States or Great Britain.
That they refused to refine Soviet oil in Cuba and were backed by the United
States said, clearly, that they were not deciding on business criteria but
political criteria. No nation would tolerate that behavior if it had a choice. Castro
was willing to pay the price because he had the Soviet alternative. The US had dealt
successfully with both land and oil company expropriation in Mexico and the two
nations had become close. Castro, for his part, thought he had to break ties
with the US.
Castro knew that the US was planning an invasion using
exiles. He told the world so in late March and early April On April 1st, he
declared the Cuban Revolution to be a socialist revolution.3 The Bay
of Pigs invasion, April 17-20, 1961, involved 1,500 exiles; most were killed or
captured by April 20th.4 Castro army and air force reacted so quickly that the
invading army never made it to the mountains. The invasion had been planned on
the premise that Cubans were so unhappy with Castro's regime that there would be
a mass uprising once news of the landing was known. They misjudged. Many
Cubans were happy with the changes Castro was making. Most of those who were not
had left the country. Even those willing to rise against Castro were unlikely to
do so unless there was clear evidence that victory would occur. Few people are
suicidal.
Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist in December, 1961.
To many, it appeared that he was enlisting the support of the USSR to forestall
future attacks on Cuba. For its part, the USSR had little choice but to
strengthen its ties to Cuba. By doing so, it could thumb its nose at its chief
rival, the United states; not to do so would mean that it was not interested in
helping Marxist-Leninist revolutions. Fidel never became a puppet, however, to
the consternation of Soviet leaders. To defend Cuba as well as itself against
the United States, the USSR installed intercontinental ballistic missiles in
Cuba. When the US confronted the USSR in October, 1962, the latter could not
claim that these long-range missiles were purely defensive for they could strike
major Latin American as well as US cities. The two nations went to the brink of
nuclear war until the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles and the US promised
not to invade Cuba. The US also began dismantling its missile bases in Turkey.
Castro was not consulted on this deal and he began to court
the Chinese Communist government, another arch rival of the USSR. In his
"Sino period" from 1963-66, he became more radical. He attempted to
industrialize his country with "backyard" industry. He supported
revolutionary movements in Latin America, including an attempt in 1963 to
overthrow the Venezuela government. He fought with Latin American
Communist parties, which were aligned with the conservative USSR. He
failed in his policies and admitted it.
When the Soviets invaded its satellite, Czechoslovakia, when
it became too liberal, Castro sided wit it. He had decided that Cuba had to have
great power support. The USSR was subsidizing Cuba as much as the US was
subsidizing South Viet Nam. In the early 1970s, USSR military and economic aid
increased dramatically. In 1972, Cuba was granted full membership in COMECON,
the Soviet's equivalent of the European Common Market. In return, it had to
support Soviet foreign policy, which meant that Cuba had to quit supporting
revolutionary movements in Latin America. On the other hand, Cuba sent troops to
Angola in the Fall of 1975 and to Ethiopia in 1978 as the Soviet Union tried,
unsuccessfully, to gain the dominant influence in these places.
Although the total economic embargo against Cuba, begun in
1961 and continued into the year 2004, did not bring down the Castro
government as intended, relations between the United States and Cuba improved in
the 1970s. Under President Jimmy Carter, restrictions on travel by Americans to
Cuba were lifted in 1977; study groups, journalists, and selected others could
visit the island. In 1979, Castro began allowing US relatives of Cubans to visit
the island, largely because he needed the income they would bring (he allowed
free farmers' markets beginning in 1980 because the state system had been
failing).
More complicated for both nations
was the Mariel boatlift which began in May, 1980 and lasted until
September 25. When some Cubans crashed a bus into the Peruvian Embassy in
Havana, thus gaining sanctuary, thousands other Cubans flooded the embassy
grounds. Infuriated and no doubt embarrassed, Castro not only allowed them to
leave through the port of Mariel but also sent others. According to US Coast
Guard records, 124,776 left for the United States. Of these, about 10% of these marielitos
were criminals and were incarcerated once they came under US jurisdiction. In
1984, the two countries negotiated an immigration agreement. Some of the marielitos
would be returned to Cuba and 20,000 Cubans would be allowed to migrate to the
United States each year. When the US established Radio Martí to broadcast to
Cuba and try to create discontent, Castro suspended the immigration agreement
and forbade Cuban-Americans from visiting Cuba. The US barred Cubans from
visiting the US. In November,1987, however, the immigration agreement was
resumed and the two nations began discussing Cuban troops in Angola. In
February, 1988, Angola announced that the Cubans troops would leave. Clearly,
that was a result of US-Cuban negotiations.
The collapse of the Soviet Empire which began in
November, 1989 when the Berlin Wall was destroyed and ended in 1991 greatly
affected Cuba's situation. Not only did it lose its subsidies, it no longer had
great power support. The US tightened the noose. In 1992, the
Cuba Democracy Act forbade the entry of third-party ships and planes that had
carried goods or people to Cuba. It reduced economic aid to nations that traded with
Cuba; increased the for violating the US embargo; and prohibited subsidiaries of
UScompanies abroad from trading with Cuba. Cubans had to tighten their belts
as their economy shrank. The situation worsened in 1993 when Russia withdrew
3,000 troops from Cuba, reducing income even further. Cubans began leaving the
island by any means.
In August ,1994, the increase in refugees led the Clinton Administration
to announce that Cubans interdicted at sea would be taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
or to Panama). Over 30,000 Cubans were caught and sent to live in camps outside the United States.5
On September 9, 1994, the US and Cuba agreed to fix the problem. The US would
continue to place Cuban refugees in safe havens outside the United States and
Cuba would discourage its nationals from sailing to the US. The US agreed to
admit a minimum of 20,000 Cuban immigrants per year in addition to admitting immediate relatives of
US citizens.
On May 2, 1995, the two agreed to admit to the United States Cubans kept at
Guantanamo, who were counted primarily against the first year of the 20,000. It
also established the "wet foot, dry foot policy." Those who made it to
the US could stay; those interdicted at sea would be returned to Cuba and Cuba
would not punish them.
When Cuba shot down two unarmed planes flown by the Brothers
to the Rescue group in 1996, President Clinton signed the
Helms-Burton Bill (the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity
Act). The
law removed the President's power to change policy towards Cuba without
Congressional approval and that the embargo would continue until Cuba had
a transition government without Fidel Castro
or his brother. Further, funding would be withdrawn from any international institution
providing humanitarian aid to Cuba. A $50,000 civil fine could be levied on US citizen who
traveled to Cuba without permission. Entry into the US territory is denied foreign executives who traffic in property confiscated from
American nationals and US banks are barred from loaning to them. Any American
citizen whose property was confiscated after the Revolution is allowed to sue
any foreign corporation that has "benefited" from the property or from
its use. This holds true even if the claimant was not a US citizen at the time
of expropriation.6 US businesses did not like
the law, preferring to trade freely with Cuba as the rest of the world was
doing.
Castro encouraged tourism to offset the loss of Soviet Bloc
subsidies. Tourism from Europe increased dramatically. Those with hard currency
could find good lodging and ample food and drink on the island because the Cuban
government gave them special treatment contrary to socialist idealism. Even the
number if Americans tourist increased. Cuba was only a pariah nation to some
Cuban exiles and ideologues in the US. As soon as Castro dies, relations are apt
to be normalized.
________
1. The US did not produce all the sugar that it wanted so it imported sugar from Mexico, Cuba, and other nations. It
used a quota system to maintain prices for US producers and to reward friendly nations.
2. Under President John F. Kennedy, it would become a total embargo 16
months later.
3. The term socialist has become so misunderstood in the United States that it needs clarification. Socialism
is group ownership of the means of production and/or distribution not for profit but for members of the group. The group can be a
governments or a co-operative or some other groups. City and county owned public
utilities or airports are socialism, for example. So are public roads, but they are the norm and few call them that. The US commonly dealt with socialists when they were in
power in the United Kingdom, France, (then) West Germany, the Scandinavian countries, etc. Many governments in the US
practiced socialism in part because the US economy had long before become a mixed economy.
4. Castro returned over 1113 prisoners in December, 1962 in return
for $53 million in medicine and food raised by private donations. The US
government had to deny responsibility.
5. More than 20,000 Haitians were also caught.
6.Max Henze, "US Embargo on Cuba," reprinted at http://www.skybabe.co.uk/embargo.htm.
Don Mabry
021504