On Cuba

The Administration's Cuban policy suffers because the self-evident claim that the Castro government is today aligned with the Soviet bloc bypasses the vital and constructive question: why?

One senses from the recent White Paper that Castro went to bed one night a social democrat, and woke up a Communist. It is even hinted that this man--who less than a year ago told 200,000 followers that "Communism kills man by wiping out his freedom"--was trying to subvert his country from the outset. Indeed the only possibility disregarded is that at every stage in Cuba's recent development, the Castro government was offered no alternative to the one supplied by the Left.

If the repercussions of the Cuban Revolution appear historically singular, credit must be given to the U.S. response. The Iraqi Revolution, for example, suggests that an entirely different course of events might have followed Castro's victory had the reaction of the State Department resembled the analogous British response.

The Revolution which Kassim led was rooted in Iraqi and Arab Nationalism, just as Castro drew strength from Cuban and Latin-American aspirations. Both leaders lacked Communist Party support at the outset; in each case the Party opportunistically gained an entree into the Revolutionary governments, and the organized Left helped fill gaps in the ruling cadres. Just as Castro villified the U.S. as a self-interested upholder of the regime which he had crushed, so Kassim assailed the British. Quite contentedly, Moscow cheered them both on.

Three months after the Kassim government came to power, the British were selling him arms; their technicians were helping him reorganize his economy; their statesmen and industrialists were offering aid in a variety of areas. And all this, while Iraq was withdrawing from the Baghdad Pact, while the Communists waved Kassim's portrait in the May Day Parade, and while the press in both Iraq and Britain enjoyed and orgy of mutual slander which is only now beginning to abate. The British took these violent insults, even from Kassim himself, diplomatically. They didn't alter their foreign policy on the basis of what the Baghdad press was saying about Anthony Eden.

As a result of this approach, the Communist Party is today shorn of power in Iraq. Instead of flaunting political and economic hostility when Kassim began trade with Russia, the English set out to replace their discarded economic relations with more equitable trade agreements. Kassim was not forced, therefore, to regear his economy; Soviet trade could complement, but not dictate, Iraqi development.

The Communist Party, seeing its postion threatened by this rapprochement, overplayed its hand in seeking to usurp further power. Fortunately, Kassim had not been placed in a position wherein his only alternative was to sacrifice the autonomy of his Revolution to Communist aims.

That is precisely the position in which a policy of American recalcitrance has placed Castro. Were the Cuban Prime Minister to reject a Soviet demand, where could he turn for alternate support? All channels have been cut off. Even now, when the White Paper protests the magnitude of Cuba's trade with Russia, it overlooks the fact that almost all their agreements followed the economic boycott which we imposed. The press objects to Soviet tanks and planes in Havana, but doesn't ask who drove Castro into Communist arms.

On several occasions, rapprochement had been suggested as the only means of undercutting Communist influence in Cuba. And always the reply came that it was too late. (Maybe a week ago, but now it's too late... Maybe before we established the embargo... Maybe before we broke relations... Maybe before we sanctioned the counter-Revolution, but... Maybe before...)

The logical extreme of the present hostility is out-and-out military intervention. Such a step is already being rationalized on the grounds that the U.S. might as well salvage a military victory out of a propaganda defeat for which it is paying the price regardless. Not one voice has called the lie, not one newspaper has warned that the world-wide implications of victory are even greater than those of defeat.

Difficult as it seems, there is still time to avoid disaster. If, as the President rightly suggests, there are lessons to be learned from the fiasco that has been called a Cuban policy, the need for readjustment is certainly the main one Castro, as well as Kennedy, realizes that Cuban autonomy is at stake. Recent Cuban votes against Russia on the Congo and on the removal of Hammarskjold lend hope that the Prime Minister fears a loss of cherished independence on the left.

For both sides, only breaking the spiral of antagonism could avert catastrophe. A method already suggested would entail the scheduled restoration of trade relations conditional upon the Cuban leader's promise not to enter into any aggressive alliance or agreement against the U.S. This is a condition which Castro has indicated he would accept if the State Department could encourage a mutually trusted mediator (President Quadros of Brazil) to take the initiative in resuming discussions.

It is not too late to choose the better settlement. Castro, as the White Paper so fully points out, no longer has realizable alternatives; the State Department still does.