Fidel Castro Read online

  The answer was more horrific than anything that could be imagined. It was so horrific, in fact, it could only be imagined, but the people, described in essence by Castro as fearful and ignorant and misguided, believed it could be true. “[The Americans] said we were going to turn the children into tinned meat,” he says. “That we were going to send them off to the Soviet Union, and in the Soviet Union they were going to be turned into tinned meat and sent back here in in tins … It’s pure fantasy, although that didn’t keep it from being believed—it was believed because those lies were associated with the most powerful human instinct. The instinct of a mother or father, especially a mother’s.”

  These conspiracies mentioned here are only the tip of the iceberg of how Castro feels the United States worked against him. Conspiracies, including the 600-plus assassination attempts Castro believes the CIA, the United States, have made on his life, could be a book in and of itself. Suffice to say, Castro knew who his allies were, notably the USSR, and who they were not (the U.S.), and that understanding would lay the foundation for the Bay of Pigs invasion and the subsequent Cuban Missile Crisis.

  To this day, Castro resents the U.S. government in turning his people against him, and believes the children who were exiled in Operation Peter Pan, now grown, resent it too. He said, “Many of them are adults now and they criticize their parents. Up there in Miami there was no place to house them … a mass of parentless Cuban children scattered all over the United States.” He believes they would have had a much better life had the U.S. not gotten involved; the U.S., of course, believes differently.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CASTRO AND KHRUSHCHEV

  “Although it wasn’t calculated that way, the support of the USSR was essential after the triumph of 1959. We wouldn’t have had that support in 1953. In 1953, the spirit and policy of Stalin prevailed in the USSR. Although Stalin had died a few months earlier, in March 1952, it was still the same ‘Stalin era’ … And Khrushchev was not Stalin.”

  Castro was smart enough to know that it was a good idea for a small country like Cuba to align itself with a world power. The United States, while in close proximity, was not going to be that power. Cuba needed to align with a power that shared their ideals, would protect their interests, and which could also be an economic outlet for them. The Soviet Union was the logical choice.

  Nikita Khrushchev was just the leader to align their interests with, though Khrushchev and the Soviet Union in general didn’t have much of an understanding of the Cuban Revolution and what Castro and his compañeros were trying to accomplish at the time. In fact, initially, Khrushchev had been misinformed that Castro was working for the CIA—not a person Khrushchev would choose to be involved with. However, after sending an ambassador to Cuba in February 1960, Anastas Mikoyan, Khrushchev learned that Cuba did share interests with the USSR, and could use their help.

  Because Cuba had been embargoed by the U.S., they needed help economically, and Khrushchev decided it would be okay to begin a trade with Cuba, fuel from the USSR in exchange for sugar from Cuba. It was meant to be a temporary measure, but continued and kept the Cubans economically solvent for years to come. But soon the relationship would become political, and create chaos between the USSR and the U.S. Castro remained diplomatic. In a letter to Khrushchev, he wrote, “I convey to you once again the infinite gratitude of the Cuban people to the Soviet people, who have been so generous and fraternal with us, and our profound gratitude and admiration to you [personally], as well as our desires for success in the enormous task and grave responsibilities that you have in your hands.”

  The Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 would force Khrushchev’s hand to make a commitment to Cuba beyond original expectation—one that would stress relations between the U.S. and the USSR as an attack on Cuba would be seen as an attack on the USSR. For the time being, it was viable for Khrushchev, even desirable, as after the invasion, Cuba had declared itself firmly a socialist nation, and it was in the interests of the USSR to preserve this kind of thinking.

  As Castro affirms in another letter to Khrushchev, explaining their defense against the U.S. “What we did in the face of the events, Comrade Khrushchev, was prepare ourselves to fight. In Cuba there was but one kind of alarm: the alarm that called our people to arms. When in our judgment the imperialist attack became imminent, I decided that I should communicate that news to you, and alert both the government and the Soviet [military] command—since there were no Soviet forces committed to fighting alongside us in defense of the Republic of Cuba against outside attack or of the possibility if an attack that it was not without power to halt, although we might indeed resist it …”

  While Khrushchev seemed to believe standing up for Cuba was the right thing to do, that it was noble and prestigious to lend aid to their infant communist cousin, he also knew that straining relations with the U.S. over it was not going to be without ramifications, and the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis brought those fears home.

  In an interview with Barbara Walters in 2002, Castro said, “Even though Nikita [Khrushchev] was a bold man, he was a courageous man … and I can make criticisms of him … of the mistakes he made. I have reflected a lot on that…. He misled Kennedy. That was his main … flaw.” He also admitted he felt Khrushchev had also not been straight with Cuba. “Believe me. We were not interested in becoming part of the whole contention between the two countries. We would not have accepted the missiles if they had said that it was related to the balance of power.”

  In any case, following the crisis, there were “no hard feelings” between Castro and Khrushchev. In June 1963, Castro visited the Soviet Union, a visit of only 11 days versus the year before, where he’d stayed nearly five weeks, the reason for which was there was much work to be done back at home. He was given the red-carpet treatment and a 21-rifle salute, and Khrushchev announced Castro as “an example for all Latin America.” Castro was bestowed a “Soviet Hero” award in a grand ceremony, a gesture of “eternal friendship,” erasing any trepidation or stress between the leaders caused by the events that had taken place during the Crisis the year before.

  Upon his return, Castro was glad to report that Khrushchev’s people “expressed by their deeds their love for and solidarity with Cuba.” During that trip, Castro was embraced as a beloved baby brother, and he and Khrushchev sat down and hammered out details for the export deals that would sustain Cuba for years to come. Castro eagerly took in all the advances the Soviets were making in agriculture, construction, and innovation, and returned to Cuba energized and eager to prove that the capitalist model wasn’t the only economic model that could succeed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  TROUBLE IN PLAYA GIRÓN (THE BAY OF PIGS)

  “[A]fter the battles, when people were full of adrenaline, enraged by the deaths, the men wounded, the tension of the battles, and this was during the first years of the Revolution, and many of our combatants were from the militias, volunteers who were there, laborers, campansinos and students, and there was not as much as a blow with a rifle butt. The men were returned to the United States are there, the ones who are still alive, in Miami—you can ask them to see whether there’s a single one of them who’ll will say he was so much as struck. There isn’t a single case.”

  While Castro continued to spread his socialist and communist notions throughout his island country, endeavoring to spread the message to the world through all his success, his detractors, namely the U.S., were ready to stop him, and to do so, they would use some of Castro’s own people—Cuban exiles who did not “drink the Kool-Aid” Castro poured, Cubans who wanted their country back the way it had been during Batista’s reign, when they had prospered.

  While the attack on Playa Girón, or more commonly known, the Bay of Pigs, would occur in April 1961, two years after Castro’s visit to the States, it had been in motion for almost as long as the Cuban Revolutionaries had been in power.

  It started with oil. One of the first actions Castro took
against the U.S. in 1960 was to order the Cuban refineries, controlled then by the U.S., to process oil from Soviet refineries. When the refineries refused, Castro nationalized them and forced them. In retaliation, the U.S. stopped importing sugar from Cuba, putting a strain on the Cuban economy. By October 1960, the U.S. government had banned all Cuban imports, creating an embargo that would last for many decades.

  Cuba fought back by further nationalizing and taking over more than 500 American businesses in Cuba. The fighting continued, with U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter, calling out Castro as “following faithfully the Bolshevik pattern” during the August 1960 meeting of the Organization of American States. Castro spat back that the poor in America were living “on the bowels of the imperialist monster.” Things began escalating quickly from that point.

  After the 1960 election, Eisenhower was out of office, and, in the opinion of the American people, so was Richard Nixon, who had lost a presidential run against the young and handsome John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was more respected by Castro than his predecessors, but that didn’t mean the U.S. was going to change the course of its plans for Cuba. The invasion had already been set in motion, though it would not happen for several more months. Explained Castro, “Kennedy really inherited the plan from Eisenhower and his vice president, Richard Nixon. The invasion was a fait accompli; plans existed for destroying the Revolution, despite the fact that at that point the Revolution wasn’t even socialist.”

  The CIA took the lead on the Castro invasion. As the threat of communism was something that weighed heavily on Americans, especially American politicians and businessmen, since the onset of the Cold War, agencies like the CIA had been set up to combat it and prevent it spreading. The CIA was the counter to the USSR’s KGB.

  Richard Bissell, the CIA’s deputy director at the time, was put in charge of the invasion. Bissell liaised with Cuban exiles and worked to form an army of mercenaries who, in effect, would be committing treason against their own country by attacking it. The U.S. didn’t want it to look like the U.S. was attacking Cuba; they wanted to make it seem like it was as an act of retaliation by exiles who wanted their country back. The plan was approved by Eisenhower in March of 1960; on August 18, he approved a budget of $13 million to fund the operation.

  It was probably believed that while Eisenhower would no longer be in power, Nixon, of course, would defeat the upstart senator from Massachusetts, and that the plan would be carried out without issue, whether Eisenhower was still president or not. It was true. What was planned was already far enough along, and it had to be carried out. So on January 28, 1961, President Kennedy, a week post-inauguration, was briefed on the plan, referred to as “Operation Pluto.” In April, it went into effect.

  Castro said, “So then Kennedy, with reservations, put Eisenhower’s and Nixon’s plan into effect—he believed the plan developed by the CIA and the Pentagon would have the support of the [Cuban] people, that the people would rush into the streets to welcome the invaders and that militias wouldn’t fight, that they’d rise against the country’s government.” They even had a new leader-in-waiting, ready to take over as soon as Castro was brought down. They underestimated Castro.

  On April 15, eight bombers opened fire on Cuban air fields, and on April 16, the main invasion landed on the beach of Playa Girón. They easily overcame what they perceived was the entire resistance against them. “They saw immediately what formula we’d used to bring down Batista to defeat that army, which was a combination of armed strength and popular support,” Castro said. But the U.S. still underestimated their enemy.

  Castro recalled, “The mercenaries had a squadron of B-26 bombers piloted by not only American crews but also officers from the former Batista air force; the planes bore the insignia of the Cuban armed forces. They launched a surprise attack on 15 April, hitting the bases used by our modest air force. This attack was the announcement that the aggression was imminent. The next day, at the burial of the victims, I proclaimed the socialist nature of our Revolution.”

  Castro didn’t sit behind a desk and await reports from the field. He was in the field. He was among the people, fighting alongside them. It made a spectacular statement; the Americans weren’t fighting. They hadn’t even sent any of their people but Cubans to fight the Cubans. And here was the leader of the Revolution, physically part of the battle. “I was in several tanks at various points during those actions,” he recalled, “not just one.”

  The next day, the true Cuban counter-attack ensued, and the invaders were overcome and captured. By April 20, they had surrendered, though Castro had no plan to hold on to these prisoners. “What were we going to do with 1,200 ‘heroes’ in jail?” he said. “We preferred that the 1,200 so called ‘heroes’ be sent back home up there.” He didn’t want these Cuban enemies of Cuba in Cuba. He wanted to send them back to their new homeland, but not without a price.

  As Castro explained, “After they’d been in prison for a short time, we demanded that the U.S. pay compensation in medical supplies and food for children. If it had happened in the U.S. they’d have sentenced them all to life in prison, if they hadn’t executed no telling how many first for treason and the rest would be in jail for life. If we’d recruited 1,000 Americans to invade the United States, anybody would have understood that sentence.”

  There have been many rumors surrounding the treatment of prisoners with Castro, but he denies any wrongdoing at all. While a number of mercenaries had been killed due to asphyxiation during transport, Castro contends to this day that this asphyxiation had been accidental. Prisoner abuse was not, hasn’t been, and wouldn’t ever be part of the plan for Castro, he claimed, despite how revved up his troops may have been. “… After that terrible combat there as not a single case of prisoner abuse—no hitting them with rifle butts, nothing of the sort. Not a single case.”

  What did Cuba want in exchange for the prisoners, whom they didn’t want to begin with? Castro said, “We sentenced them to pay compensation of $100,000 per prisoner, or alternatively, a prison sentence. What we wanted was payment of compensation, not because we had any need for money but rather as a recognition by the United States government of the revolutionary victory—it was almost a kind of moral punishment.”

  Eventually, the prisoners would be returned, but it was Castro who decided the terms. The U.S. simply went along with it. He explained, “So we were the ones who found the solution for all those mercenaries who were in prison. The U.S. government didn’t have the imagination for it.”

  This wouldn’t be the last of the skirmishes between the superpower United States and tiny island power Cuba, however. In fact, what came next made the world stand up and take notice of Cuba as a country; if not to fully respect it, then at least to fear it. Because within a matter of months, the world would believe that the tiny island power had, in their control, the power to end the world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

  “You have been and are a tireless defender of peace; I understand how bitter these hours must be for you, when the results of your superhuman efforts are so seriously threatened. Until the last moment, however, we shall maintain our hope that peace may be salvaged, and we are willing and ready to contribute whatever may be within our reach [to achieve that goal] … I convey to you once again the infinite gratitude of the Cuban people to the Soviet people, who have been so generous and fraternal with us, and our profound gratitude and admiration to you [personally], as well as our desires for success in the enormous task and grave responsibilities that you have in your hands.”

  —From a letter to Khrushchev from Fidel Castro

  The humiliation in the Bay of Pigs was not one the United States was going to accept lying down, and retaliation measures were soon planned. However, also going on now was a very real understanding that Cuba was not a Third-World nation that could be bullied into accepting the will of the United States. And not only were they a force to be reckoned with on their own, they als
o had a “big brother” to watch their back on the “playground.” And not only was the USSR behind Cuba, but also the Chinese. The Chinese People’s Daily reported that “650,000,000 Chinese men and women were standing by the Cuban people.”

  The biggest fear, however, felt around the world, in West Germany and in France, was that the USSR had armed Cuba with nuclear missiles, which Castro could and would launch at whim. How did they know the Cubans had nuclear weapons? For one, the CIA, flying unauthorized in a no-fly zone, had obtained photographic evidence. Second, Cuba readily admitted their existence. And, following the CIA’s failed attack on the Bay of Pigs, Cuba convinced Khrushchev to announce that “an attack on Cuba will be considered an attack on the Soviet Union.”

  Khrushchev complied, with reservation, but what sparked now was the very real idea that Cuba, with the help of the USSR, had the power to end it all. Castro was not sorry; he was empowered. “The world was on the verge of thermonuclear war as a consequence of the United States’s aggressively brutal policy against Cuba—a plan, approved about 10 months after the disastrous defeat they suffered in Girón and about eight months before the crisis broke out, to invade the island with the direct use of that country’s naval, air, and armed forces.”

  How did Cuba know that another attack was being planned against them? Khrushchev again. “The Soviets managed to obtain absolutely trustworthy information about that plan, and they notified Cuba of the existence of the danger, although they weren’t totally explicit—the truth is, they protected their source.”

  Let’s backtrack a bit to understand why the world even initially suspected Cuba had missiles, their relationship to the USSR notwithstanding. When Kennedy ran for election in 1960, one of his major platforms was missile gaps, meaning there were missiles in the world that weren’t being accounted for, and where in the world were they? Khrushchev only fed this, baiting the world that of course they had more missiles than anyone suspected they did, that they “turned them out like sausages,” and that they could be anywhere in the world. Naturally, after the Bay of Pigs invasion, Cuba’s success, and the Soviet celebration of that success, the U.S. could only conclude some of those missiles were indeed in Cuba, with crazy Castro’s finger on the button.