I have undertaken to write this book because I am convinced that my experience as the United States Ambassador to Cuba was unusual in the sense that I lived through the Castro Communist Revolution, and I feel that I owe it to the American people to try to establish the fact that the Castro Communist Revolution need never have occurred.  From this experience, I learned not only that our techniques of relations with Cuba were faulty but that the modus operandi for the determination of policy is not only inadequate but dangerous to the defense of our country.  In Chapter 22 of this book, I summarize the conclusions reached from this experience.

When I started to work on this account of my experience as the American Ambassador to Cuba, I was troubled about my responsibilities.  I had been on a governmental team;  I had been appointed by President Eisenhower, I had served under Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, for both of whom I have great respect.

The men I would have to criticize were colleagues, and some of them I admire as officials and like as men.  It is difficult to become so objective as to forget all these human factors.  It is even more difficult to bring into the complex life of a new Administration a criticism of a great department of government which, in my judgment, requires much improvement in its housekeeping methods.

Shall I take the attitude that I was given an opportunity to have an interesting experience and keep silent ?  Many adopt that attitude which is the easy way.  It is not in my nature to hurt others or to project my own ideas as superior to others.  Why not tend to my own business, live the kind of quiet life to which I am accustomed, and leave to journalists the task of exposure ?  On the other hand, I can never forget that the United States has been kind to me and to my forebears and that my first obligation is to my country.  It is the way I was brought up to believe.  Were it otherwise, I should never have accepted public office and I should never have taken an oath to protect and defend this country.

Therefore, I have written this book only as a footnote to history and to the science of government.  It can have no other purpose.

I TOOK the oath as United States Ambassador to Cuba on June 13, 1957, at ceremonies attended by my wife;  my two daughters, Mrs. Augustus Paine II and Mrs. William Hutton;  the wife of a young Senator from Massachusetts, Mrs. John F. Kennedy;  the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles;  Wiley Buchanan, Chief of Protocol;  and other officials of the State Department.

When not serving my government I have been actively engaged as an investment broker and corporation director.  I have retained a membership on the New York Stock Exchange for more than thirty years.

I have been active in politics both on the national level and in my home state of Florida.  I have served the United States under Presidential appointment of Franklin D. Roosevelt as a dollar-a-year man on the War Production Board, and after Pearl Harbor as a member of the Armed Forces overseas during World War II.  I was appointed by President Eisenhower to accompany Vice-President Nixon in January, 1956, as a member of the American delegation to the inauguration of Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek in Rio de Janeiro.  I was appointed as President Eisenhower's Ambassador to Cuba during extremely difficult times.  I was personally selected by President Kennedy to serve as Ambassador to Switzerland.  Although I was honored that President Kennedy believed I could be of service to my country, I requested the President to withdraw my name because of the controversy that was stimulated.

The Swiss government represented the interests of the United States in Cuba.  My opposition to Castro and his government was well known and dates back to my service in Havana.  There were indications that the Swiss felt my presence in Switzerland would complicate the responsibilities their government had assumed in behalf of the United States in Cuba.  Because of that, I wrote the President:  "It is my judgment that our country's well being in this matter would best be served if my name were removed from consideration as Ambassador to Switzerland."

Cuba was a diplomatic assignment I had long wanted.  My interest in Cuba was never a superficial one;  since 1928 I had been visiting there.  The people and the country were familiar to me and I had many Cuban friends.  I have spoken French and German since childhood.  I studied Spanish at the Foreign Service School and continued my Spanish lessons at the Embassy in Havana.  I had traveled widely and knew Cuba well, and I felt I could judge the thoughts and moods of the Cuban people because of the close relationship I had enjoyed in the islands for so many years.  I was fully aware the assignment would be a challenge, but this only stimulated my interest further.

I knew, even before I went to Cuba, that I would have to deal with the Castro revolution.  I did not know then that this was a Communist revolution and I was informed neither by the officials of the State Department nor by Herbert Matthews of the New York Times, from whom I was instructed to receive a briefing, that the observation of the Castro Communist revolution would be my responsibility.

I now know that those in charge of Cuban affairs in the State Department were advised from many other sources of the Communist infiltration of the 26th of July Movement^[1] and of the Communist sympathizers who held important positions in the Movement, especially among the troops led by Raul Castro.

From the time Castro landed in the Province of Oriente in December 1956, the State Department received reports of probable Communist infiltration and exploitation of the 26th of July Movement.  The State Department was aware of Castro's contacts with Communists in Mexico.  Certain officials in the State Department were familiar with Castro's part in the bloody Communist-inspired uprising in Bogota, known as the "Bogotazo" of 1948.  In addition to my reports and information from many outside sources, the State Department also had reports from its own Bureau of Research and Intelligence.

This knowledge was not made available to the American people.  I am now convinced that neither President Eisenhower nor Secretary of State John Foster Dulles were provided with information available to officials in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

My official briefings included a lengthy conversation in New York City with Herbert Matthews.  This briefing was suggested to me by William Wieland, Director of the Office of Caribbean and Mexican Affairs, and approved by Roy R. Rubottom, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs.

Mr. Matthews informed me that he had very knowledgeable views of Cuba and Latin America in general.  He was of the firm belief that it would be in the best interests of Cuba and the rest of the world if Batista were removed from office.  Mr. Matthews had a very poor opinion of Batista.  He considered him a Rightist, ruthless, and corrupt dictator.

The significance of my briefing by Mr. Matthews is that it revealed the thinking and the aims of those influential sources in the lower echelon of the State Department at that time, for the views of the New York Times journalist on the Cuba situation were fully publicized.  In February 1957, Herbert Matthews visited Fidel Castro in the hills of the Sierra Maestra.  As a result, he wrote three articles on Fidel Castro which appeared as lead columns on the front page of the New York Times on three separate days.  The newspaper also carried photographs of Fidel Castro and Herbert Matthews to dispel the rumors of Castro's death.  In these articles, Matthews eulogized Fidel Castro, portrayed him as a political Robin Hood, and compared him to Abraham Lincoln.

On August 30, 1960, in reply to questioning before a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate, as to what part, if any, the United States played in Castro's and the Communist rise to power in Cuba, I testified:

The United States Government agencies and the United States press played a major role in bringing Castro to power.

Three front page articles in the New York Times in early 1957 written by the editorialist, Herbert Matthews, served to inflate Castro to world stature and world recognition.  Until that time, Castro had been just another bandit in the Oriente Mountains of Cuba with a handful of followers who had terrorized the campesinos, that is, the peasants throughout the countryside.

Fidel Castro landed on the south coast of Oriente in December of 1956, from Mexico, with an expeditionary force of eighty-one men.  Intercepted by Cuban gunboats and patrol planes, Castro and a handful of stragglers managed to ensconce themselves in the rugged eight-thousand-foot Sierra Maestra Range.

After the Matthews articles which followed an exclusive interview by the Times editorial writer in Castro's mountain hideout and which likened him to Abraham Lincoln, he was able to get followers and funds in Cuba and in the United States.  From that time on, arms, money and soldiers of fortune abounded.  Much of the American press began to picture Castro as a political Robin Hood.

Before leaving Washington I made an appointment with the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, to pay my respects to this distinguished gentleman.  As he was preparing for a visit to Europe, our meeting was brief.  Yet he had time to convince me of his appreciation of Cuba's friendship for the United States, so clearly and so often demonstrated by Cuba's Ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Emilio Nunez Portuondo.  As I left the Secretary's office, I could not help but reflect over his words.  I was impressed by the difference of the Secretary's attitude toward the government of Cuba as compared to the impressions I had acquired during my extended period of briefing in the lower echelon, often referred to as the Fourth Floor.

My final instructions from the State Department were to travel around the country, see the people, and let the Cubans know that I wanted to get generally acquainted with them and their customs.

I arrived in Havana on the S.S. Grand Haven on July 15, 1957, from Palm Beach, Florida, accompanied by my wife, our son, his nurse and our dog.

1 The name originates from the attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago on July 26, 1953, which was led by Fidel Castro and Raul Castro.

BETWEEN AMBASSADOR ARTHUR GARDNER'S DEPARTURE from and my arrival in Havana there was a matter of three or four weeks.  On our arrival, I found an atmosphere of excitement.  I also was moved by the feeling of hope on the part of the people that the appointment of a new Ambassador indicated a new attitude toward the government of Cuba on the part of the United States.

Some of the people of Cuba thought my appointment might presage direct intervention in the tumultuous political affairs of their country.  However, my departure from the United States had been purposely delayed to avoid the inference this appointment was of an emergency character.  Immediately on our arrival in Cuba, we were informed three bombs had been found on the grounds of the Hotel National, where we were to spend our first six weeks while the Embassy residence was being prepared.  It was the belief of Minister Counselor Vinton Chapin, who was soon to leave Cuba to assume his new post as United States Ambassador to Luxembourg, and other officers of the Embassy, that the bombs had been placed by the 26th of July Movement to remind our government there was an active opposition against the government of Cuba.  However, the revolutionaries sent messages to the Embassy, by courier, maintaining the bombs had been placed by government officials to impress upon the Ambassador the terroristic nature of Castro's revolutionary movement.  I was thus immediately involved in the fiery surge of Cuban politics.

At my first staff meeting of the principal aides of the Embassy, I told them frankly that I realized mine was to be a post at which no Ambassador could win, for, to be correct, the American Ambassador should be strictly impartial in the internal affairs of the country to which he is assigned.  On the one side, the American government had been criticized for attempting to perpetuate the Batista dictatorship.  On the other hand, I was the accredited American representative to the friendly government of Cuba under Fulgencio Batista.

I knew Cubans well enough to realize you must he either with them or against them.  To be strictly impartial meant neither side would like you.  I was prepared to accept the situation, and I said my actions would be guided only by what I deemed was in the best interest of the United States.

One of my first acts was to issue instructions that no cables were to leave the Embassy without my approval.  This procedure was always followed.  If I were unavailable, cables had then to be submitted to the Deputy Chief of Mission, Vinton Chapin, and, later, to Minister Counselor Daniel E. Braddock.  I regretted the departure of Minister Counselor Chapin to assume his post as Ambassador to Luxembourg.  He was replaced as Deputy Chief of Mission by Minister Counselor Braddock, an able, loyal and conscientious officer of the State Department.

At eleven o'clock on the morning of July 24th, I held my first press conference at the American Embassy in Havana.  The conference lasted one hour and fifteen minutes and all the large Cuban dailies were represented (there were nineteen in Havana alone), as were international wire services, news magazines, and newsreels.  The Conference Room on the top floor of the Embassy was jammed.  Seated beside me at a long table were First Secretary John Topping, Minister Counselor Chapin, and an Embassy Spanish-speaking interpreter.  The technique I selected to meet the press was first to make a general statement and then open the conference to questions.

My opening statement was:

I want you to know that Mrs. Smith and I are extremely pleased to be in Cuba.  We both are busily studying Spanish.  I am proud to have been chosen for this assignment by President Eisenhower.  We admire this country and the Cuban people, and intend to get to other parts of the island often, to know both better.  As a matter of fact, I plan to visit Santiago de Cuba, Moa Bay, Nicaro, and our naval base at Guantanamo Bay, with some members of my staff the middle of next week.

I am dedicated to the task of maintaining and strengthening the fine relations between our two countries.  Cubans and Americans have fought side by side on several occasions in defense of democratic ideals, and the two nations, I feel, will always be the closest of friends, and allies in the common fight against Communist subversion.  Cuba is as loyal and has been as good a friend of the United States as any of our sister nations.  I shall certainly work toward strengthening that fine relationship.

After the statement, the conference was opened to questions.  I went on to say that

The basic policy of the United States toward Cuba is non-intervention in the internal affairs of Cuba.  We are as close as any other two peoples in the world, not only geographically, but in kinship.  I am confident that the Cuban people are peace-loving and I hope they can solve their problems in their own way, for Cuban problems are for the Cuban people to solve, without outside intervention.^[2]

Naturally, there was immediate, close questioning from the press, regarding which Cuban political factions I would receive at the Embassy, and socially at the Embassy residence.  I reiterated, "I am prepared to receive and talk with anyone who approaches me through normal channels, with the objective of explaining his views, but I will hold no clandestine meetings."

Another member of the press pursued the same subject, couched in different language, for, with the stirring, churning political situation in Cuba, it was of utmost interest who would be received by the United States Ambassador.  They wanted to know precisely which opposition leaders would be invited to confer with me at the Embassy.  I was asked, "Do you mean you will receive and talk to any and all leaders of any and all opposition parties, including those dedicated to the overthrow of the present government of Cuba by force ?"^[3]

I repeated emphatically, "I will hold no clandestine meetings, but I will talk with anyone who approaches me through normal channels with the objective of explaining his views."

During this conference, I tried to answer all questions with frankness.  On only this one issue of which opposition leaders would be received in conference at the Embassy was I forced to beg off on the grounds that I had stated my case and further discussion might lead to misunderstanding.  For a newly appointed Ambassador to have been specific would indeed have been undiplomatic and could serve no purpose in future relations with the government to which I had been accredited or to the opposition parties.

The conference moved on to other issues.  Questioned on whether I thought Batista was fighting communism in Cuba in a manner satisfactory to the United States State Department, I replied:  "The United States is gratified by the decisive moves made by the government of Cuba to outlaw the Communist Party, sever diplomatic relations with Russia and establish a Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities (BRAC).  I am confident the Cuban people are too intelligent to pay attention to, or be taken in by, Communist lies and false promises."

I elaborated, "The United States and the American people appreciate, with admiration and respect, the position taken by Cuba's delegate to the United Nations, Dr. Nunez Portuondo, in the historic speech he delivered in criticism of Russia's role in the suppression of the Hungarian revolt last Fall (1956).  We take his words as an indication of the feelings of the Cuban people toward Communism."

The press now switched to personal and humorous questions.  An outstanding trait of Cuban personality is a sense of humor, active at even the most intense moments.  The American Ambassador in Cuba held a position second only to the President of Cuba because of our vast business, cultural and social ties.  Therefore, the Cuban people were singularly curious about background, family, hobbies, family pets—all points almost embarrassingly reminiscent of the American interest in motion picture stars.

The conference dispersed on a light vein.  I was amused to be asked by Ted Scott, columnist for the Havana Post, and who, in months to come, proved to be a reliable and valuable friend, "Ambassador, as a former champion boxer in college, do you favor the overthrow of the present world heavyweight boxing champion by Cuban challenger, Nino Valdes, by force ?"

Before an Ambassador presents his credentials to the Chief of State of a nation to which he is to be accredited, it is customary for the Embassy to submit the Ambassador's speech of introduction to the Foreign Office of that country.  This is done so the Chief of State may have sufficient time to prepare a suitable response.

My original speech of introduction, prepared by the Embassy and the Department of State, stated that the people of the United States were deeply saddened by the blood now being shed in Cuba, and it was the fervent hope of all Americans that Cuba would find a peaceful solution to its problems.  When the speech was delivered to the Foreign Office, it caused concern, for such an introductory remark indicated the United States Government did not believe the government of Cuba could control the political situation in the island.  Such a statement was undiplomatic.  Fortunately, I received instructions to recall the document and delete the disparaging words.  As far as the public was concerned, no harm was done, for there was no leakage.  But Batista, who already had a copy of the speech, knew the State Department had indicated through these words their stiffening attitude toward his government.

On the morning of July 23, I presented my credentials to President Batista as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to Cuba.  The short, dignified ceremony, based on century-old procedures, took place in the Hall of Mirrors in the Presidential Palace at eleven thirty in the morning.  Ladies were not allowed to attend.

In Cuba my wife was the first Ambassador's wife ever to observe the entire ceremony.  The President broke this longestablished precedent by inviting her to observe the ceremony from a small balcony overlooking a vast room with a magnificent vaulted ceiling.

Little did I realize at the time that eighteen months later I would be visiting in the same room with Fidel Castro's designee for President of the Provisional Government, Manuel Urrutia !

Accompanied by a delegation of seven military and civilian officials of the United States Embassy, I presented my credentials to President Batista.  In my speech of introduction, I told the President that it was my intention to make a tour of Cuba, "as soon as I had the chance—to get to know the country and the people." I stated that I had been "an admirer of Cuba for a long time," emphasizing that I felt "true affection for the Cuban people."

President Batista replied that he learned with pleasure that on some future occasion I intended to travel through the island in order to know more about the country and the Cubans.  The Cuban President said that my intentions to tour Cuba reminded him of similar visits he made while living in the United States.  He said:  "I have the most pleasant impressions of your country."  And added:  "I do not forget, and I cherish the remembrance that, notwithstanding the fact that I was then a political exile, I was able to obtain, through my conduct, the respect of my neighbors there, for Cuba and for myself, doubtless because I never attempted to break the pattern of life, or the laws of the country, the generous hospitality of which I was enjoying."

Following the speech, President Batista and I enjoyed a brief chat, at which time President Batista again emphasized his pleasure at my intention of touring Cuba.  This was my first meeting with President Batista.  He impressed me as being a tough guy with bull-like strength and exuding a forceful, agreeable personality.  Here was an extraordinary example of a virile man of the soil and of mixed antecedents, who had projected himself from a simple sergeant to the Presidency of his country.

As we left the Palace, the battalion of artillery troops snapped to attention and presented arms while the band played "The Star-Spangled Banner."  President Batista stood on the balcony of the Palace and waved good-by as our cars drove off.

2 Times of Havana, July 25, 1957.

3 Times of Havana, July 25, 1957.

IT IS THE custom for the Ambassador who has just arrived at a new post to give a reception for the members of the Embassy staff.  The Embassy residence unfortunately was not ready for occupancy, so my wife and I held our reception at the Hotel National on July 17, two days after our arrival.

At this party, in a conversation between First Secretary for Political Affairs John Topping, Minister Counselor Vinton Chapin and myself, it was decided that we should leave be fore the end of the month on a trip to include Santiago in Oriente Province;  our Guantanamo Naval Base;  the American owned Moa Bay Mining Company properties (subsidiary of Freeport Sulphur), with an investment of approximately seventy-five million dollars;  and the United States Government Nickel properties at Nicaro with an investment of over one hundred million dollars.

Once the trip was announced on July 25, six days before our departure, the mold was cast.  It was announced sufficiently early to permit the government to prepare the climate for the visit.  It also gave the opposition time to prepare for a demonstration.  The trip was arranged to conform with my instructions to get around the island.  It was approved by the State Department and by President Batista.

At approximately eight o'clock the night before our scheduled departure, I was informed that a 26th of July leader and a prominent businessman, Frank Pais and Raul Pujol, had been shot and killed in Santiago by government forces.  When I received the news, I was attending a staff members' reception in honor of a departing Foreign Service officer.  We wondered if the event was accidental, or might the shooting have been done for the purpose of getting me to call off the trip to Oriente.  The possibility of postponing the trip was considered.

If it was postponed, the revolutionaries would claim the government shot the men to prevent the trip.  After consultation with members of the Embassy staff, the decision was made to go through with the trip.

We left Havana on the Embassy Air Attaché plane on the morning of July 31 at 7:00 A.M., arriving at Santiago at 10:30.  The members of the party included Mrs. Smith, three military service attachés, the Second Secretary for Economic Affairs, the First Secretary for Political Affairs, the outgoing and incoming public affairs officers, and the Chief Intelligence Officer.  We proceeded to Santiago's colonial City Hall, where I was presented with the keys of the city.

Our arrival in Santiago, which is the capital of Oriente Province and the second largest city in Cuba, was made while the population was emotionally disturbed, supposedly because of the shooting.  A general strike of Santiago businessmen had closed down the city.  That afternoon, the funeral of the two prominent revolutionaries was to take place.  Thousands took part in the funeral procession.

As my wife and I entered the City Hall, a man pushed forward and thrust three rolls of film in her hand.  He begged her to carry them out of Santiago.  She had to refuse.

While I was receiving the keys to the city of Santiago de Cuba, and the customary speeches were taking place, you could hear a growing roar of voices outside.  The mothers of Santiago were demonstrating in the square.  A group of approximately two hundred women—some quite young and, to all appearances, representative of the upper middle class—staged a demonstration in Parque Cespedes in front of the Municipal Palace.  The women were dressed completely in black.  Many were too young to have been mothers of grown sons.  They were obviously recruited for the occasion.  The demonstrators were singing the Cuban national anthem, and shouting, "Liberty! Liberty!"  The women, in attempting to break through the police lines, brought down the wrath of the police and the Army Intelligence men upon them.  Fire engines arrived and the firemen turned the hoses on the women.  The police unnecessarily beat them back with their clubs.

Our audience became bored with the speeches and moved to the large windows overlooking the square in front of the Municipal Palace.  As soon as Mrs. Smith and I came out of the City Hall onto the street, the demonstration increased.  Some of the women were successful in breaking through the lines and getting to us.  The mothers of Santiago became hysterical and fought to get to me.  We were appalled by the unnecessary roughness and brutality of the police.  Some women were knocked down, others were thrown in the police wagon.

Newsmen asked my reaction to the events.  I said, "I think it unfortunate that some of the people of Santiago de Cuba took advantage of my presence here to demonstrate and protest to their own government."  The press was not satisfied.  Did I approve of such brutality and was the attitude of the American Embassy toward the Batista government to be the same as under Ambassador Gardner ?  The press intimated that my statement could be interpreted as inferring approval of the method by which the demonstration was quelled.

Here was an occasion at Santiago when an envoy must make an on-the-spot decision.  I told the newsmen there would be a press conference after lunch.

It was our belief that if the Santiago incident had not occurred a situation similar to that in Santiago would have had to be faced sooner or later.  It was common knowledge throughout the island that my predecessor, Ambassador Arthur Gardner, and Mrs. Gardner, had been close personal friends of President Batista, even to playing canasta several times a week.  The opposition maintained that Ambassador Gardner had been too friendly to Batista.

I realized that a delicate diplomatic point had been raised and had to be met.  The question had been brought to a head and could not be avoided.  My instructions from the State Department had been to alter the prevailing notion in Cuba that the American Ambassador was intervening on behalf of the government of Cuba to perpetuate the Batista dictatorship.  The government seemed to have acquired a feeling that a "new deal" was being initiated by the State Department.  The government of Cuba wanted to know where it stood.  Therefore, both the opposition and the government were anxious for a showdown on the new Ambassador's attitude.  Both sides were trying to use for their advantage anything I said or did.  Both sides got the answer at Santiago—that I was not for one side or the other, but that I was impartial in the Cuban political struggle.

After a luncheon at Santiago's Rancho Club Restaurant in the hilly outskirts of the city, at an informal press conference, I issued the following statement:

I would like to make the preliminary observation that I feel that some of the people of Santiago de Cuba took advantage of my presence here to demonstrate and protest to their own government.

As I said in my press conference on July 25, the American people are saddened and concerned over the political unrest which has led to bloodshed in Cuba.  I have received a letter signed by the Mothers of Santiago de Cuba.  This will receive my careful attention and consideration.

Any form of excessive police action is abhorrent to me.  I deeply regret that my presence in Santiago de Cuba may have been the cause of public demonstrations which brought on police retal iation.  I sincerely trust that those held by the police as a result of their demonstrations have been released.

In response to a question as to the purpose of my visit, I said that:  "It was not purely for courtesy but to inform myself and that I had latitude from my Government in that regard."

In response to a further question, I added that:  "I had latitude to observe and report, not, repeat, not to intervene."  With these words, the press conference ended.

While the funeral of the revolutionaries at Santiago was taking place in the afternoon, I visited the cemetery to lay a wreath on the tomb of Cuba's national hero, Jose Marti.

In the city of Santiago, the funeral of Pais and Pujol turned into a spontaneous general strike.  From their hideouts in the hills, Castro's guerrillas pounced upon isolated military outposts at Minas and Bueycito.  They ambushed the soldiers, captured their arms and ammunition and set fire to the large sugar mill at Maceo.

That evening we dined quietly at the home of the United States Consul, Oscar Guerra, and were informed that a dispatch had been given out reporting the release of more than thirty women who had been arrested in the morning during the demonstration at Parque Cespedes.

Early the next morning, August 1, we left for the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.  Following the full honors accredited to the rank of Ambassador, the Admiral in troduced me to the heads of departments and other senior officers of the Base who were present and in formation.  I then went on a complete tour of this huge United States Naval Base, one of the principal American Naval Bases outside the continental limits of the United States.  We spent that night at the Base and had a delightful time with Admiral Ellis, Mrs. Ellis, and the staff officers.

Once again, civilian laws in Cuba were suspended.  President Fulgencio Batista, on the first of August, suspended constitutional guarantees throughout Cuba for a period of forty five days.  Under the suspension of constitutional guarantees, the government assumed the authority to search homes without warrant, arrest citizens and hold them without trial.  Under the same power, the government imposed censorship of the press and radio.

I was suddenly confronted with the possibility of discontinuing the trip.  The statement at the Santiago press conference had created a furor.  The words "Any form of excessive police action is abhorrent to me" became explosive.  Batista objected to this, and some of his friends began a campaign to have me recalled.  The government newspapers attacked me viciously.  The press in the United States reprinted the attacks published in the Cuban government press.  I decided to ignore the tempest, to carry on the trip as planned, and to make my full report to the State Department after the trip was completed and I had returned to Havana.

The following day, August 2, we left for the Man Bay Mining Company and the Nicaro Nickel properties.  In these high hills, covered with pine trees, lie vast reserves of iron ore.  The United States government and the Freeport Sulphur Company invested separately a total of $175,000,000 for the production of nickel in these properties.

My trip to Santiago demonstrated that everything the United States and its Ambassadors did, or did not do, in Latin America, affects the internal political situations of these coun tries.  It needs to be pointed out and stressed that every act on the part of an American diplomat and every word spoken officially, and sometimes unofficially, in a country like Cuba, was considered political intervention, and such words were magnified far beyond their importance.  All this made the task of an Ambassador particularly difficult.  Before Castro, the United States was so important in the minds of the Cuban people that the American Ambassador was, to repeat, regarded as the second most important personage in Cuba.  He was a symbol of both power and friendship.

The close relationship between our two countries goes back many years.  The United States and Cuba fought side by side in the Spanish-American War of 1898.  At his country home, Finca Kuquine, President Batista proudly displayed to me the original letter, written in 1902, from President Theodore Roosevelt to President Estrada Palma of Cuba.  It was a letter of congratulation because Cuba had gained its independence.

Our relations with Cuba for many years were based upon the Platt Amendments which were added to the Army Appropriation Bill of March 2, 1901.  On May 22, 1903, the Cuban Convention duly added them as an appendix to the Cuban Constitution.  To protect elimination by the amending power, the Platt Amendments were also incorporated into a treaty between the United States and Cuba on May 22, 1903.  These amendments, which gave the United States the right to intervene in Cuba's internal affairs, were in effect until May 29, 1934, when they were ended by a mutual statement of abrogation.  After that, Cuba achieved full sovereignty.  While our legal status in Cuba was thus weakened, our prestige and significance were strengthened.

After my return to Havana, I was gratified to learn that the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, at a press conference in Washington, warmly defended me and my statement made at Santiago.  He said:

I read the statement and I want to say that it is a statement which, perhaps from a purely technical point of view, may not have been perfectly correct.  But it was a human statement.  I am glad we have some, in fact, I hope many Ambassadors who are not mere automatic machines but who do have sentiments of humanity which they sometimes express without regard, perhaps, to the diplomatic niceties.  His statement was a very well balanced statement and he made it because he felt that he had become involved in, and had been a cause of, the trouble.  He regretted, on the one hand, that his visit had been used to stage demonstrations, and he regretted, on the other hand, that the restraining of those demonstrators had involved certain, what he regarded as, police brutalities.  And a person of flesh and blood and heart would, I think, under the circumstances of the case, have made the kind of statement that he did.  I am confident that even if it was, in certain technical respects, perhaps not correct, that there will be an understanding of it on the part of the authorities in Cuba, because it was a very human thing to do and, as I say, we want our Ambassadors to be human people.

The following editorial appeared in the New York Times on August 3, 1957:

It was good to hear Secretary of State Dulles on Tuesday stand up for our new Ambassador to Cuba, Earl E.T. Smith.  The Secretary's remarks were also not without their importance both as an expression of the technique of diplomacy and as an implied attitude toward the military dictatorship of President Batista.

With the introduction of telephone, teletype, cable and radio communications, diplomacy has lost much of its personal flavor.  An Ambassador may have the title of "Plenipotentiary," but his powers are rarely evolved and executed on the spot.

However, there are occasions when an envoy is called upon for a snap judgment, Mr. Smith faced such an occasion in Santiago de Cuba on July 31.  His visit had inspired a peaceful anti-Batista demonstration by two hundred women of the city.  Mr. Smith saw the police treat the women brutally and learned that thirty of them had been arrested.  He naturally felt a sense of responsibility and outrage and, as "a person of flesh and blood and heart would" (to quote Mr. Dulles), the Ambassador protested against the "excessive police action" and expressed the hope that the women arrested would be released—as they were.

This—again to cite Mr. Dulles—"may not have been perfectly correct" from the traditional diplomatic standpoint, but it was "a very human statement."  It also was a courageous one.  Cuban-American relations had deteriorated seriously before Mr. Smith arrived.  He did more to restore happy relations in one stroke than the most skillful traditional diplomacy could have done in many months. Does this mean that the State Department's attitude toward the dictatorial regime of President Batista has changed? Cubans evidently now believe so.  The change of Ambassadors and the attitude of Mr. Smith are taken as indications.  So will be Mr. Dulles' support of Ambassador Smith and his refusal to express an opinion about the political situation in Cuba when he was asked to do so on Wednesday.

A curtain of darkness descended on Cuba with the imposition of complete censorship on August 1.  It is significant that the last piece of news to come out of Cuba free of censorship concerned Ambassador Smith's stand for decency and democracy.  There may well have been a connection between what happened in Santiago de Cuba and the suspension the next day of constitutional guarantees.  The door was closed too late.

These were the last complimentary words I was to receive from the New York Times and their Latin American expert, Herbert Matthews.  The clearer I saw Fidel Castro in his true colors, the more I alienated Herbert Matthews.

On September 1, 1957, I attended the horse races at Oriental Park, Havana, because they had named a handicap in my honor.  Hundreds of Cuban people stood up and cheered as I entered.  According to Cuban newspapers it was one of the greatest ovations ever given an individual in the forty-twoyear history of the race track.

The ovation was not a personal tribute, nor was it recognition of any virtues as an individual, but an eager tribute to an American respect of humanity, so clearly expressed at Santiago.

BECAUSE OF THE FUROR of the Santiago Incident a diplomatically uncomfortable relationship existed for several weeks, and I realized that it was up to me to restore normal diplomatic relations with Batista.  At a reception given at the Haitian Embassy, I saw Foreign Minister Gonzalo Guell and asked for an interview with the President of the Republic.

The interview was arranged by the Foreign Minister, and I met the President of the Republic at the Palace two days later.  We talked frankly and freely for more than two hours.  During my entire mission, this was the only official call I made on Batista in the Presidential Palace.  All other official conferences were held in the late evenings at his country home, Finca Kuquine, just outside of Havana.

At this meeting, I explained to Batista the circumstances and reasons for my Santiago statement, to which his government had taken exception.  At first he protested that I was the accredited American Ambassador to his government; therefore, my "constancy" while in Cuba was to him.  I told him diplomatically, that the Embassy had been accused of being too close to him.  We were accused by the opposition of perpetuating his regime and that my instructions were to restore the American Embassy in the minds of Cubans to an impartial basis in the difficult political times through which Cuba was passing.  I pointed out to the President the pressure which was being exerted on the Department of State because of the Embassy's over-friendly relationship with him.  When I asked Batista if his actions, or reactions, would have been any different in my circumstances at Santiago, he finally said he agreed with and understood my position.

I had accomplished my first mission of establishing the Embassy's position of impartiality in the political affairs of Cuba.  Our exchange of views also re-established satisfactory diplomatic relations between our two countries.

I began to expand my contacts and to concentrate on my second mission—to persuade Batista to restore constitutional guarantees and to lift the press censorship.

I MADE AN INTENSIVE STUDY into the background of Fidel Castro.  I spent days talking to people who had known him from childhood.  It was the unanimous opinion of these people that Fidel was an unstable terrorist.  I was careful during this searching and exhaustive study to listen to sound and intelligent Cubans who were anti-Batista.  They were outstanding professional men, intellectual leaders, and the clergy.  No matter how anti-Batista these people were, they believed Castro would be worse for Cuba than Batista.

It is incorrect to assume that the only opposition to Batista was Castro and his followers.  A powerful anti-Batista element existed that was not terroristic.  It represented the middle class and the intelligentsia of the country.  I regarded this as the legal opposition, and included in this element were men who were capable of governing the country.  We threw the Embassy open to all trends of political thought, including the legal opposition.  However, our doors were not open to the revolutionaries who were attempting to overthrow the government by force.

In my testimony before the Senate Sub-Committee on Internal Security on August go, 1960, the following colloquy took place:

Senator Eastland:  You had been warning the State Department that Castro was a Marxist ?

Mr. Smith:  Yes, sir.

Senator Eastland:  And that Batista's government was a friendly government.  That is what had been your advice to the State Department ?

Mr. Smith:  Let me answer that this way—which will make it very clear.  When I went to Cuba, I left here with the definite feeling according to my briefings which I had received, that the United States Government was too close to the Batista regime, and that we were being accused of intervening in the affairs of Cuba by trying to perpetuate the Batista dictatorship.

After I had been in Cuba for approximately two months, and had made a study of Fidel Castro and the revolutionaries, it was perfectly obvious to me, as it would be to any other reasonable man, that Castro was not the answer, that if Castro came to power it would not be in the best interests of Cuba or in the best interests of the United States.

Unfortunately, some of the officers in the Havana Embassy continued until the end to believe that Castro was the salvation for Cuba.  There was a lapse of time of approximately one month between the time of Ambassador Gardner's departure and my arrival in Cuba.  During that period, the Embassy in Havana notified the State Department that the Batista government was brushing off all the opposition as Communists, and reported that labeling the opposition as Communists was standard policy on the part of the government of Cuba.

On September 5, 1957, at the naval base in Cienfuegos in Las Villas Province, Cuban naval officers, with the mutual assistance of civilian revolutionaries, launched their biggest uprising up to that time against the Batista government.  The American Embassy was informed of the over-all preparations for the insurrection.  The planning was to be co-ordinated between the naval bases in Havana and Cienfuegos.

Those in authority at Havana postponed the date for launching, but failed to notify the insurrectionists at the Cienfuegos naval base.  Rebellious elements were able to seize and control the base and they were successful in taking over control of the entire city for some hours in co-operation with the armed civilian revolutionaries.  Bombers were dispatched to the naval base from Camp Columbia.  Some of the pilots, not wishing to kill their confreres, released their bombs at sea.  Troops and tanks converged on Cienfuegos to squash the resistance.  Total dead were estimated in excess of three hundred.

Although the revolt was a failure and was crushed, it made Batista and his government officials realize that they no longer were able to count on the blind support of the armed forces, which Batista had previously completely depended upon.

Our information on the revolt came to us through our No. 2 CIA man in the Embassy, whose activities in giving aid and comfort to the Castro forces was disclosed at the court martial of the naval officers who participated in the revolt.  At this trial, it was divulged that an officer of the American Embassy had advised the revolutionaries that, if the revolution were successful and Batista overthrown, the United States would recognize the revolutionaries.  This gave much moral encouragement to the rebels.

Although all American officials, no matter to which service they are attached, are under the authority of the Ambassador and are supposed to report to him, I knew nothing of this CIA man's activities.  He acted on his own.  I doubt that the Secretary of State was informed of this incident.

I quote from my testimony before the Senate Sub-Committee:

Mr. Sourwine:  Mr. Smith, you spoke earlier of the No. 2 CIA man in your mission having been caught giving aid and comfort to the Castro forces.  Would you tell us just what he did ?

Mr. Smith:  Yes.  In September, 1957, the navy had an uprising at Cienfuegos, Cuba.  We in the American Embassy were familiar that a revolt of some type would take place.  That information came to us through the CIA, or some other source in the Embassy.

If I may divert for a minute, that is the trouble with Cubans; they talk too much.  We did not know when it was going to take place.

We finally heard that the revolt at Cienfuegos had been called off.  However, the navy in Havana forgot to notify the navy at Cienfuegos, and they went on with the revolt, while the navy in Havana did not participate.

This revolt was squashed by the Batista government.

In the trial of the naval officers, it came out that the No. 2 man had said that if the revolution were successful, the United States would recognize the revolutionaries.

I do not believe that the No. 2 man in the CIA intended to convey that thought.  His story to me was that he had been called over to interview some men believed to be doctors, because they were dressed in white coats, and when they advised him of the revolt that was to take place, they wanted to know what the position of the United States would be.

And he inadvertently intimated, something to the effect of which I am not quite sure, that the United States might give recognition.

As soon as the Embassy learned of this, I called a meeting of the Embassy staff and laid down the law that [neither] the Ambassador, nor anyone [else], could give [any statement] as to whom the United States would recognize;  that there were only two people in the United States who had that authority:

One was the Secretary of State and the other was the President of the United States.

The information of what had taken place was brought to me by Batista.  Batista was very indignant.  However, I explained what [had] happened and told him—Batista—that the CIA man had done this inadvertently and had not realized what he was saying or to whom he was talking.

Batista was co-operative and did not ask to have the man leave the country.

In September 1957, I asked the Chief of the CIA Section attached to the Embassy to review their figures on Communist Party strength in Cuba—both as to card-bearing Communists and Communist sympathizers.

I questioned our estimates because nine years earlier, when the Communists for the last time in Cuba voted as a party under the Communist label, they polled over one hundred and twenty thousand votes and Juan Marinello was the candidate.  Nevertheless, the Embassy CIA estimates on Communist Party strength in Cuba in 1957 indicated only ten thousand card-bearing Communists, and approximately 20,000 odd Communist sympathizers.

It is interesting to note that the CIA officer had a closed mind and demonstrated a resentment to my references to Fidel, which I made on numerous occasions at our morning staff meetings.  At these meetings, I used to refer to Fidel Castro as the "outlaw" and the "bandit leader" in the hills.  In jest I asked him from time to time if he was not a "Fidelista" (Fidel Castro supporter).

These feelings of resentment were shown by a remark he made when he walked out of my office.  After I had asked him to review the figures, I heard him say, "We don't care what you think."  I realized this remark may have come out inadvertently—like a hiccup.  Yet it also indicated the intellectual snobbism directed by the career officers against the political appointees.

This officer was later transferred to another post.  The decision was made in Washington of CIA's own volition because he had been too long at the Havana Embassy.

The career officers and the foreign service officers are the professionals of the State Department.  They are proud, and have an understandable esprit de corps.  There is an inevitable resentment amongst these professionals against a political appointee—be he an Ambassador, an Assistant Secretary of State, an Under Secretary of State, or even a Secretary of State.  The professionals feel that the political appointees are here today and gone tomorrow.

On April 3, 1958, the Chief of the Central American Bureau of the CIA visited the Embassy in Havana after a visit in Panama and Venezuela.  He told me that he shared my fear of the Communist influence in Cuba.  The CIA was cognizant of the Communist ties with Raul Castro and Che Guevara.  Yet it is significant that the CIA was not concerned about Fidel Castro himself being a Communist. Nearly eleven months after Castro came to power on November 5, 1959, the following exchange of views took place before the Internal Security Sub-Committee of the United States Senate between Senator Olin D. Johnston and General C.P. Cabell (Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency):

Senator Johnston:  Is it not true that he (Castro) is more dangerous than if he would come out and let them know that he was a Communist ?

General Cabell:  I personally would agree that Castro would probably lose much, or even most, of his popular support should this occur.  However, we believe Castro is not a member of the Communist Party, and does not consider himself to be a Communist.

Senator Johnston:  He knows himself that, if he would come out openly for the Communists, he would lose his usefulness.

General Cabell:  That is right.  In so far as he loses public support, he loses the capability to achieve his goals—though he could still be portrayed as victim of counter-revolutionary machinations.

Several months after I assumed my post as Chief of Mission in Havana, I sent a telegram to Allen Dulles, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency marked, "Allen Dulles' Eyes Only."  The telegram recommended the placing of an agent in the top echelon of the Fidel Castro forces, then hiding in the Sierra Maestra hills, so that the CIA could keep themselves informed as to the extent of Communist infiltration and as to the extent of Communist control of the Castro movement (26th of July Movement), I must assume that this was never done, or they would have been better informed.

AT FIRST, the members of the American colony were afraid that I was seeing too much of the opposition.  They noted that I played golf with former Cuban Ambassador to the United States, Luis Machado;  and Washington representative to the Cuban sugar industry, Joaquin Meyer, both of whom were known to be anti-Batista.  American business interests were pro-government of Cuba, because the government of Cuba was giving them protection against the sabotage efforts of the terrorists and the raiding and looting of the revolutionaries.  Shortly after my arrival in Cuba, French Ambassador Philippe Grousset gave an official dinner for my wife and myself.  Former Prime Minister, Jorge Garcia Montes, refused to attend.  Other officials of the government of Cuba were afraid to be seen with me because they felt that my sympathies were not with Batista.

As my sympathies appeared to lean toward Castro when I first arrived in Cuba, Foreign Minister Guell confided later that he had written to the United States to make inquiries regarding my background.  He was an old-fashioned diplomat to whom family background meant a good deal.  He said he had received word that my father was a gentleman and well thought of in the United States.  Dr. Guell was convinced that I would see things the correct way.

It was becoming more and more obvious to me that the Castro-led 26th of July Movement embraced every element of radical political thought and terroristic inclination in Cuba.

In early 1958 Radio Moscow openly supported the Castro revolutionaries.  Early in March 1958, I notified the Department that the Cuban Army had announced the previous evening that Radio Moscow had made shortwave broadcasts asking that Castro forces be aided and abetted in overthrowing the government of Cuba.  Radio Moscow throughout 1958 supported the 26th of July Movement.

In early November 1957, revolutionary organizations had formed a Unity Pact in Miami, Florida, known as the "Junta de Liberacion Cubana."  The 26th of July Movement was the most important revolutionary group, yet other organizations played an important role in anti-Batista activities.

Any illusions that Fidel Castro could be controlled or would co-operate with other elements of the opposition were dispelled on December 14, 1957, by a letter from Castro directed to the junta de Liberacion Cubana.  This letter revealed him to be a dictatorial egomaniac.  In the letter, he denounced the organization of other revolutionary groups.  He denounced the Unity Pact of these groups formed in Miami, Florida.  He denounced both Raul Chibas and Dr. Felipe Pazos because they had taken it upon themselves to sign for the 26th of July Movement.  He said that neither had the authority to sign for his Movement.  This letter revealed Castro's intentions to install his own provisional Presidential candidate in power and his intentions to dominate the government himself.

Two of his ardent supporters, Dr. Manuel Antonio de Varona of the Autentico Party, and Faure Chomon, the leader of the Directorio Revolucionario (Revolutionary Directorate), both denounced Castro's aims as expressed in this epistle.  Some of Castro's followers in the United States, because of its contents, resigned from the Miami Unity Pact.  They feared his demagogic intentions.

It was becoming clearer and clearer to those with an open mind that Cuba was torn in a struggle between a Rightist, corrupt dictator who was friendly to the United States, and a would-be Leftist dictator, who could be a Communist.  As the world refused to believe Hitler in Mein Kampf, few heeded Castro's public announcements on various occasions prior to his landing in Oriente, in December 1956, of his socialistic plans and intentions.  Most people did not want to believe his announcements.  It was more popular to look upon the bearded terrorist as a crusader, even a savior.

Batista was able to remain in power because he had:  (a) the support of the armed forces, (b) the support of the labor leaders, and (c) because of the general economic prosperity in the island.

AMERICANS IN CUBA were annoyed by the press censorship.  The following United States newspapers were circulated in Havana:  the Miami News, the Miami Herald, the New York Times and the Herald Tribune.  Each one would be cut out by the censors in Havana when referring to the activities of the terrorists.  The news magazines, Time and Newsweek, were gone over by the scissor-employees of the Batista government.  Americans in Havana, including the Embassy staff, believing in the very principle of free press, were not satisfied until all the holes in all the newspapers in Havana disappeared.  This did not take place until constitutional guarantees were reinstated.

General Cabell, Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before the Internal Security Sub-Committee of the United States Senate that one of the five principal channels used by the Communists to influence Castro was "through their overt propaganda organs, radio and television commentary, and selective or false news reporting, the Communists hope to shield Fidel, and the Cuban public, from news favorable to United States policies, and to exploit news unfavorable to the United States."

By the same token, some of the liberal press in the United States became the unwitting tool of the Communist propaganda apparatus by their selective and inaccurate news reporting of events in Cuba, and by slanting the news unfavorably to the government of Cuba and favorably to Castro.

The press did much to create a popular delusion that because Batista was the dictator who unlawfully seized power, Castro must, on the other hand, represent liberty and democracy.  Throughout the world, since 1917, peoples have been looking for "good leaders," "good dictators," "good governments."  Usually they have permitted such persons as Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini to rule them.  Thus arose a cult of the good dictator and the bad dictator.  To some, Castro looked like a good dictator before he took office.

Before Fidel Castro abandoned Cuba, he and many others of the 26th of July Movement leaders were active in the Federation of University Students (FEU), which was largely responsible for the acts of terrorism and riots in Cuba before Fidel Castro landed in the hills of Oriente in December 1956.  The FEU since 1952 was a terroristic organization and was known to be infiltrated by the Communists.  It had a history of involvement in common gangster activities and was under Communist influence.

When Fidel Castro was in Costa Rica, Mexico, and other places, his speeches as a student leader clearly traced a Marxist trend of political thought.  Also, his interviews while in Mexico as an exile indicated the same trend of political thought.

There was a time when some in authority in the United States and some newspapermen did not want Castro to fail under any circumstances.  Such persons were so fanatically bound to the revolutionary concept that they were even willing to risk the prospect of Communist control of Cuba.  I do not accuse anyone of deliberately falsifying the facts, but from where I sat I could see the slanting of reports, and always the slanting was favorable to Castro.

The sympathies of the free world were for Castro, who had been portrayed by the liberal press as a Robin Hood.  Every act of violence on the part of Batista was publicized on the front pages.  Little mention was given to the violence of the terrorists.

In Cuban public squares, bombs were set off by the revolutionaries.  Women and children were maimed.  Bombs were placed by the Castro rebels in theaters, schools, stores wherever crowds gathered.  Bombing terrorists were getting bolder in Havana.  This was all part of the campaign of terror to disrupt the economy of the country.  Little mention of such acts of violence was made in the American press.

The American public was led to believe through false propaganda that the basic problems in Cuba were economic and social.  This was not so.  The basic problems were political.  The best economic year in Cuba's history was 1957.  For twenty-five years after President Machado's overthrow, Cuba's standard of living rose to a place among the highest in Latin America.  The balance of trade favored the United States when I was Chief of Mission in Havana.  Cuba bought more goods in dollars from the United States than the United States bought from Cuba, even though the United States purchased approximately 3,000,000 tons of sugar per year from Cuba with a subsidy of more than two cents per pound, which represented approximately one-half of Cuba's entire sugar production.

In 1957, Cuba's national income was 2,397,000,000 dollars.^[4]  The population was approximately 6,500,000.

National Income in Millions of Pesos⁵
1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958
1,842 1,841 1,899 2,076 2,397 2,267

The Cuban peso had been at parity with the United States dollar except for the period 1936-41.  Cuba's national income was of 130 million in 1958 from the peak year 1957.  Batista fled Cuba on January 1, 1959.

In July 1956, the United States Department of Commerce issued "Investment in Cuba," which said:

Subsistence living, so prevalent in many areas of Latin America, is not characteristic of Cuba, whose national income reflects the wage economy of the country.  Compensation of employees represented from 56 percent to 61 percent of total national income between 1946 and 1949 and from 59 to 65 percent between 1950 and 1954.

Cuban national income has reached levels which give the Cuban people one of the highest standards of living in Latin America.  The Economic and Technical mission of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development stated in its Report on Cuba, 1951:

"The general impression of members of the Mission, from observations in travels all over Cuba, is that living levels of farmers, agricultural laborers, industrial workers, storekeepers, and others are higher all along the line than for corresponding groups in other tropical countries and in nearly all other Latin American countries.  This does not mean that there is no dire poverty in Cuba, but simply that in comparative terms Cubans are better of, on the average, than people of these other areas."

This statement, written in 1951, summarizes equally well the situation in 1956.

No observer with experience in Latin America can fail to be impressed by the variety, quantity, and quality of the merchandise displayed in the provincial towns and cities of the island.  While such items as mechanical refrigerators, gas ranges, and television sets are prominently displayed, the strongest impressions are those formed by an inspection of stores carrying housewares, apparel and foodstuffs.  Items of this nature give a more accurate clue to purchasing-power levels in Latin America than do automobile, television or refrigerator indexes.

The sugar crop, with the subsidized American quota, gave Cuba a healthy budget.  A law was promulgated by the Cuban Congress when that able statesman, Dr. C. Marquez Sterling, was the presiding officer, which provided that profits were to be shared among the land owners, planters, and workers in accordance with the average sugar price.  This rendered exploitation impossible.

Dr. Marquez Sterling, the leading opposition Presidential candidate in 1958, who was also the presiding officer over the Assembly which promulgated the Constitution of 1940, pointed out that:

There existed in Cuba the right of land tenure.  This made it impossible for planters, tenants, joint owners, and field workers to be dispossessed even by the State itself, much less by the great monopolies which, in Cuba, as is the case even here in the United States, are always after impoverished areas.  They made it necessary for Cuba, just as it was necessary for this great democracy (United States of America) to enact anti-trust legislation to regulate these rights.

Although Cuba suffered inequalities, as do all present day countries, the issues at stake during her armed struggle originated in a policy that opposed public liberties.  But, as can be easily ascertained by anyone who studies the matter, the case was that, concurrent with this struggle for public power, our country was enjoying great prosperity, the year 1957 being the best in all of our history in terms of economics and finances.

Actually, as a result of the truly socio-economic revolution of 1933, the last 2,5 years of our existence as a republic saw Cuba attain very great heights, that in some aspects put her among the topmost ranks of the American continent.

The strong economy and the fact that Cuba enjoyed a higher standard of living than most Latin American nations was due to some extent to the close ties existing between the United States and Cuba and the influence of the large American investments in the island.

4 As per figures compiled by the International Monetary Fund, May 1962, Vol. XV, No. 5.

5 Ibid.

DURING his eighteen years as the dominant force alternately in Cuban politics, Batista had done much to keep the economy sound.  He had stimulated public work programs, had obtained the aid of foreign investments, had built schools, hotels, and many highways.  So many hotels were built in the nearly two years I was in Cuba in order to take care of another income source, the tourists, that the skyline of Havana began to look like a miniature Manhattan Island.  Yet out in the small towns in the center of the island living conditions left much to be desired.  In the small villages there was little refrigeration for the corner grocery store. The main street was often just a dirt road. Few, if any, homes had heat, and during the sudden sharp cold spells the old and the poor suffered. There was a need for low cost modern housing in the interior. Hospitals only existed miles away. Schools were transitory. Outside the Province of Havana the country was picturesque but behind the times.

Although Cuba was the last of the Latin American re­publics to acquire independence, a comparison of the figures shows that Cuba occupied one of the leading places in eco­nomic development.

In 1900, two years before Cuba became an independent nation, its population was approximately 1,600,000 and the country was poor. In the fifty-six years of its independence, the population grew to more than 6,500,000 and, through the free enterprise system, Cubans built a prosperous republic. Amongst a few of the reasons for the fall of the Batista government, I might mention (obviously not complete and not listed in the order of their importance) were:

1. The day-by-day actions taken by those on the Fourth Floor of the State Department.*
2. The dedication to the overthrow of all Rightist Dictators by certain influential persons and institutions in the United States.
3. Dishonesty and corruption which brought about disintegra­tion within the government of Cuba and permeated down through the armed services.
4. Strong-arm methods of law enforcement agencies.
5. The need for honest, free and open elections.
6. Lack of education for the masses.
7. The need for schools and hospitals in the outside provinces.
8. The need for low-cost housing in the interior.
9. Diversification of the economy -- Cuba was too dependent on one product, sugar. The entire economy of the country was based on the volume and value of the sugar crop. The volume af­fected employment, length of the Zafra (sugar-making season), railway traffic and port movement. The value of the sugar crop determined wage levels and the amount of money in circulation. During the sugar season there was prosperity in the interior of the island. During the dead season of the sugar harvest, the Batista government created employment for the workers through deficit spending. Attempts were made to rectify Cuba's dependence on the cultivation of sugar cane by diversifying its agricultural production, developing the mining industry and developing the cattle and dairy industry.
* Reference to the Fourth Floor of the State Department must be taken symbolically. The Fourth Floor is where the officials dealing with Latin American Affairs have their offices.

On August 30, 1960, the following colloquy took place on "The Fall of Batista" at the United States Senate Sub-Com­mittee Hearings:

Senator Eastland: Did Castro ever win a battle ?

Mr. Smith: Castro never won a military victory. The best victories that Castro ever won were raids upon Cuban guardhouses that are spread out through the hinterland and small skirmishes with government troops.

Senator Eastland: How did he come to power ? First, why did Batista leave ?

Mr. Smith: Why did Batista leave ?

Senator Eastland: Yes.

Mr. Smith: If the United States had been completely impartial, in my opinion, Batista would not have had to leave Cuba until after the inauguration of the president-elect (Rivero Aguero).

Senator Eastland: He didn't have to leave. He had not been defeated by armed force.

Mr. Smith: Let me put it to you this way: that there are a lot of reasons for Batista's moving out. Batista had been in control off and on for [eighteen] years. His government was disintegrating, at the end, due to corruption [and] to the fact that he had been in power too long. Police brutality was getting worse.

I further testified:

The fact that the United States was no longer supporting Batista had a devastating psychological effect upon the armed forces and upon the leaders of the labor movement. This went a long way toward bringing about his downfall.

On the other hand, our actions in the United States were responsible for the rise to power of Castro. Until certain portions of the American press began to write derogatory articles against the Batista government, the Castro revolution never got off first base.

Batista made the mistake of overemphasizing the importance of [Dr. Carlos] Prio [Socarras], who was residing in Florida, and underestimating the importance of Castro. Prio was operating out of the United States, out of Florida, supplying the revolutionaries with arms, ammunition, bodies and money.

Batista told me that when Prio left Cuba, Prio and Alameia took $140 million out of Cuba. If we cut that estimate in half, they may have shared $70 million. It is believed that Prio spent a great many millions of dollars in the United States assisting the revolu­naries. This was done right from our shores.

Senator Eastland: No effort was made to stop it ?

Mr. Smith: The Batista government complained continually about the airlifts and airdrops of bodies and arms from the United States. I always kept the State Department fully informed.

But we seemed to have great trouble in enforcing our neutrality ­laws. I have sometimes wished that we had been half as diligent at that time in enforcing our neutrality laws as we have been lately.

As American Ambassador it was easy to see the hand­writing on the wall -- that Cuba had to have a new leader, one who believed in the democratic processes of government for the people, but it was also obvious that Castro was not the answer. It was so apparent to me from my first-hand reports on Castro that he was not the answer that, as I stated in a press conference at Washington on January 16, 1958, one year before Batista fled Cuba, "The United States would never be able to do business with Fidel Castro."

I knew by that time that Fidel Castro should never be the ruler of Cuba. His record was one of a gun-toting terrorist who hired himself out to revolutionary forces who wanted to unseat governments in Latin America. Whether or not Castro was a card-bearing Communist when he first landed in Oriente was not the main issue. The important points were: his record of emotional instability, radical socialist political thinking plus a deep-seated hatred for the United States, and, outside of Cuba, the police record of a violent terrorist.

Under oath before the Senate Sub-Committee, I testified August 1960:

The Communists are too smart to infiltrate too openly at the beginning and disclose their hand. Many times when I was in Cuba I said that the 26th of July Movement, the revolutionary movement, was a Boy Scout movement compared to the Com­munists, and that the Communists would apply the blotting paper to the 26th of July Movement as they saw fit, and they did sop it up as they saw fit.

By no longer openly supporting the existing government of Cuba, the United States helped Castro rise to power in preference to a number of politically sound and friendly leaders we might have supported. The nuances behind our then lagging and diffident support of Batista had a devastating psy­chological effect on the armed forces and the leaders of the labor movement. These leaders became nervous and fright­ened. The regime began to disintegrate from within. The rumor of no further support from the United States for Batista spread, but until some idealistic but unrealistic members of the American press descended on Cuba to destroy Batista and create a world-wide picture of the new savior of the people, Fidel Castro, the Castro revolution never got off the ground.

It was unfortunate that so many of the American press who came to Cuba did not visit the American Embassy to dis­cuss the United States stand on Cuba and Castro. It is the duty of reporters to write the facts as objectively as possible. In some cases, before they returned home to write their opinions of a complicated situation, they spent only twenty­four hours in Cuba, which is hardly enough to obtain more than a glimpse of the country. At one point, we even had an influx of TV personalities who became authorities and over­night sages.

Take the example of Mr. Jack Paar, who came to Cuba to spend a few days producing a Cuban version of his nighttime variety show. The producer invited my wife and me to appear in the audience at the Tropicana so the cameras could briefly photograph us. Since I do not approve of superficial publicity, I refused, and fortunately so, for Mr. Paar returned to America as one of Castro's prominent admirers.

There was one newspaperman brave enough to announce in print that he had made a mistake in judgment, and I refer to Mr. Ed Sullivan. After a short visit in Cuba, he wrote:

United States Ambassador to Cuba, Earl E.T. Smith, and his staff missed the boat completely. They swallowed Batista's propaganda, hook, line and sinker. In Sunday's papers, the White House announced that Ambassador Smith's resignation had been accepted. Our Ambassador should have listened to veteran Ameri­can foreign correspondents in Latin America. Chicago Trib's Jules Dubois begged Ambassador Smith not to allow the United States Military Commission to train Batista's fliers for bombing forays against the people of Cuba, pointing out that Castro's bearded army represented and was expressing the deep feeling of the people of Cuba. Our Embassy in Havana ridiculed this interpretation, gave the green light to Batista's bombing of the populace. If our State Department would instruct the United States Embassy biggies all over the world to contact American foreign correspondents on the scene, get the benefit of their man-in-the-street savvy, we would be spared incidents such as the fiasco in Cuba.*
* New York Daily News, January 12, 1959.

It took courage when, on April 4, 1960, Sullivan wrote further:

Earl E.T. Smith, former Ambassador to Cuba, relieved from that post when Castro came to power, hasn't been congratulated for his analysis of Castro by any of us who rapped him at the time. But Smith was right and everybody else was wrong.*
*New York Daily News, April 4, 1960.

Too many people, without thoughtful consideration and without diligent study of the facts, reach fixed conclusions about complex political and economic situations of a nation in a day or two. This is unfortunately true not only of tour­ists but also of newspapermen and television commentators. Granted that Batista had outserved his usefulness, those who so flippantly decided in favor of Castro imperiled not only Cuba but also the United States.

IN DECEMBER 1957, about six months after my arrival, the American Embassy in Havana was informed that Communist members of the Castro revolution were plotting my assassina­tion for political reasons. Information of the plot came to us from intelligence sources at the American Embassy at Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic. The plot, which was later veri­fied by the State Department, called for two Communists to be sent to Havana from Mexico City to kill the American Ambassador. The plan was to create an international incident in the hope that the resultant scandal would bring about the fall of the Batista government.

Intelligence sources of the Haitian Embassy in Mexico City also learned of the Communist murder plot. The Haitian Army Attaché in Cuba notified the United States Army At tache, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Treadway, of the reports received by the Haitian Embassy. Although the subject of protection was discussed and bodyguards were offered, they were neither wanted nor did I accept them. Accepting body­guards would have offended the better elements of the opposi­tion.

Our only concern was for the safety of our five-year-old son. Because of the possibility of kidnaping, I arranged to have a Cuban employee of the Embassy accompany the boy on his way to and from school.

While I was in Washington on one of my trips for con­sultation, the situation in Havana was particularly tense due to the stepped-up terroristic activities of the revolutionaries and the increased repressive measures of the police. I believed it necessary to contact my wife, Florence, to remind her dis­creetly that our son was ill and that he should remain within the Embassy residence according to doctor's orders. It was necessary to disguise our conversation, as all the Embassy telephones were tapped by the Batista government. Florence understood immediately. She reassured me by saying that she planned to keep little Earl in his bedroom because he was coming down with a cold.

On January 24, 1958, Batista appealed for an electoral solution and publicly promised to turn the government over to his duly elected successor. Yet Batista certainly did not help his cause with the Department or with the Embassy by having a law passed which would make him eligible to command the military in the ensuing administration. According to this legis­lation, Batista would be eligible to assume the new position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The opposition im­mediately asserted that Batista intended to perpetuate himself in office.

It was the desire of the revolutionaries to destroy the con­fidence of the people in the government of Cuba and to dis­rupt the economy of Cuba. In 1957 and in early 1958, these activities on the part of the revolutionaries had little effect.

It was not until the early summer of 1958 that such stepped-up activities began to have an effect on the economy of Cuba. For a time, the Castro revolutionaries acted more like irresponsible hoodlums than like a well-directed organization. By the fall of 1958, the revolutionaries appeared to be receiv­ing professional advice on how to disrupt the economy of Cuba; i.e., destroying the main arteries of transportation by blowing up bridges and dislocating principal highways, blow­ing up railroad tracks, and attacking railroad trains. As a result of the disruption of transportation, widespread fear prevailed in the island regarding the ability to transport the sugar harvest to the mills. Communications were disrupted by destroying telephone and telegraph lines. The revolutionaries were attempting to cut the island in half at Las Villas Province by shutting off all transportation and communication between the two ends of the island. The change from casual attacks to a well-directed campaign was surprising.

The rebels made periodic raids on the Nicaro Nickel Mine, owned by the United States Government and the Moa Bay Nickel Mine, owned by the Freeport Sulphur Company. In response to my request Batista sent troops to both nickel mines to protect these properties. He said to me: "I will place 1,000 men at each mine, if you will supply me with 2,000 rifles."

Batista always tried to be co-operative and always tried to accede to the Embassy requests, especially for the protection and saving of American lives. Batista insisted that he was con scious of his responsibility for the preservation of law and order, including the saving of American lives and the protec­tion of American property, although there was boiling trouble underneath. Batista did not want it said that his government was no longer able to live up to such responsibilities. I cannot recall any time when he did not make an effort to live up to the responsibility of protection of American lives and property.

Batista would say to me: "You came to me for the saving of American lives and the protection of American property. This is the responsibility of the government of Cuba which I shall live up to. Yet I cannot understand why your government refuses to sell arms to my government which is friendly to you and an enemy of Communism:" I can well recall him asking me, "Can you name another friendly government to whom you will not sell arms?"

Whenever I asked President Batista for Cuba's vote to support the United States in the United Nations, he would instruct his Foreign Minister to have the Cuban delegation vote in accordance with the United States delegation and to give full support to the American delegation at the United Nations.

My prediction at the first Embassy staff meeting that "the job of American Ambassador to Havana during that period was a post at which no Ambassador could win" was being proven correct. For to be correct, the American Ambassador should be strictly impartial and as I said at the staff meeting, "I know Cubans well enough to know that you must be either with them or against them."

The United States was receiving caustic criticism from both sides of the fight. Our alleged policy was complete non­intervention. Yet antagonistic forces in Cuba assailed us de­spite our impartial position in the long-simmering revolt.

The rebels stated that our non-intervention tended to favor the Batista regime because the government in power enjoyed official recognition by the United States. This fact promoted anti-American feeling among the rebels because it tended to work against them.

On the other hand, government officials were deeply up­set because the State Department suspended the shipments of arms to the government of Cuba. Officials of the Batista regime were upset because we did not enforce our neutrality laws; because we were permitting news releases about the government of Cuba to be slanted -- playing up government of Cuba atrocities and playing down rebel atrocities; and be­cause of our "intervention by innuendo" -- using moral pres­sure to block the sale of arms to the government of Cuba by other powers.

Before the suspension of sale of arms, American military aid was supplied to Batista for hemisphere defense as a pro­tection against "any Communist subversion," and we were getting more and more evidence that the 26th of July Move­ment under Fidel Castro was being infiltrated by Communists and becoming more and more Communist-controlled.

At the same time, the revolutionaries were irate with the United States because they believed that it was American­made planes and American-made bombs (previously delivered to the government of Cuba) that were dropped on the city of Cienfuegos during the Naval uprising in September 1957. Also the revolutionaries were furious with the United States and with the American Ambassador because American arms were allegedly being used by Batista forces against the revolution­aries in Oriente Province. Such arms had been supplied to the Cuban government under the Military Defense Assistance Pro­gram.

The proclaimed policy of the United States was non­intervention -- although for a power as great as the United States, it is nearly impossible not to intervene in a country as closely associated with us as Cuba had been. Before Castro, Cuban-American relations were warm, close and friendly. For years we had been together in a common fight against Com­munist subversion. The Cubans and ourselves had fought side by side on several occasions in defense of democratic ideals. Before Castro, Cuba was as loyal and had been as good a friend of the United States as any of our sister nations. Both the government of Cuba and the 26th of July Movement ex­pected us to help them and expected us not to help the other side.

IT HAD BECOME obvious to me but not to William Wieland, Director of the Office of Caribbean and Mexican Affairs of the State Department (MID Section), that Fidel Castro was not the solution for Cuba's political problems. In early January 1958, Wieland visited the American Embassy in Havana and showed us a paper he had written, which depicted the econ­omy of Cuba as crumbling and recommended that the United States apply pressure on the government of Cuba to hasten its downfall. Actually, economic conditions in Cuba had never been better than in the year which had just ended. His paper went on to say that the government of Cuba would probably fall in a relatively short period of time.

The purpose of his visit to Havana was to have the Em­bassy prepare and submit a paper along the same lines, en­dorsing his stand. William Wieland and John Topping, head of the Embassy's political division, prepared for the Embassy an outline of such a paper, depicting a poor economy in Cuba under chaotic conditions and anticipating the early fall of the government of Cuba.

When this paper was brought to my attention, I disagreed with the premise. I went on to say that any paper that Wieland wished to prepare along such lines could be sent to the State Department only over his own signature. Any paper that left the Embassy over my signature would be along very different lines.

Because of Wieland's visit to Havana, I decided to go to Washington to explain in person my thoughts on the political problems of Cuba. So I telephoned Assistant Secretary Roy Rubottom, stating that I wished to go to Washington for con­sultation and was prepared to debate the economic and poli­tical situation of Cuba with anyone. Mr. Rubottom said that the Department did not have sufficient funds left to pay for my trip. d countered by saying that I would be happy to pay my own expenses. He then agreed to have me come up and arranged for the necessary travel orders to be issued.

I arrived in Washington on January 16 and was met at the railroad terminal by Mr. Wieland and Mr. Leonhardy (Cuban Desk Officer). Mr. Wieland informed me that he had arranged a press conference for that afternoon at two-thirty. I objected to the press conference, as I had nothing of interest which I could disclose to the press. Wieland said that it was too late to cancel.

At a consultation that morning in Secretary Rubottom's office, I informed the State Department officers that Batista had agreed to lift the press censorship and would restore con­stitutional guarantees. However, this information was not to be leaked, as President Batista would not make the announce­ment for several days. Mr. Wieland's paper was not discussed again between us and was discarded on Secretary Rubottom's instructions.

In return for the restoration of constitutional guarantees I was authorized to inform Batista that he could expect de­livery of the twenty armored cars which had been on order for nine months. At the same time, I was asked by the State Department to inform Batista that it was the United States' hope that he would be able to eliminate violence in the country and could create conditions which would be acceptable for free and open elections.

After attending a press conference of the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, on January 16, during lunch hour, I hurried to Mr. Wieland's office where I found Mr. Leonhardy, as well as Mr. Wieland, and members of the press. I read the prepared statement which said that the United States hoped the government of Cuba would hold acceptable elections, spoke of our concern with the political problems of Cuba, and reiterated our intentions strictly to adhere to our policy of non-intervention.

After reading the statement, I was asked, off the record, whether I thought the United States government would be able to do business with Fidel Castro. My reply was that I did not believe the United States would ever be able to do business with Fidel Castro. Then I was asked the reasons for my statement. I replied that the United States Government can only do business with a government that will honor its international obligations and that can maintain law and order. In my opinion, Castro would do neither.

Although the statement was made off the record, within twenty-four hours Castro, in the Sierra Maestri, and certain pro-Castro members of the United States Congress, had re­ceived word that I had stated that Fidel Castro was a Com­munist, although my statement was as printed above. From that time on (nearly twelve months before Batista fled), I was officially on record as being against Castro. Also, from that time on, the revolutionaries and the Communists carried on a campaign to destroy my effectiveness. The leak to Castro of my off-the-record statement could only have come from someone in the State Department or from one of the news­papermen present. It was also leaked that the government of Cuba intended to restore constitutional guarantees.

When I returned to Havana I was met by reporters. I realized the government of Cuba would be annoyed at the premature public disclosure of its intention to restore guar antees at the expiration of the current period of suspension, on January 29, 1958. So I made the following factual state­ment, hoping to pour oil on the troubled waters: "I wish that business in general in the United States was as flourishing as it is in Cuba:" At that time, we were in a recession in the United States.

The next day, January 17, the Cuban press carried front­page stories of the prepared release, with emphasis on the non-intervention aspect of the statement. No mention was made of my remarks about Fidel Castro. These remarks had been off the record. Minister of the Interior, Santiago Rey, speaking for the government, indicated the government's an­noyance at the premature public disclosure of its intentions to restore guarantees by saving that constitutional guarantees would be restored "as rapidly as possible and when circum­stances so advised"; that he was touched by the State Depart­ment's concern regarding the internal matters of Cuba and that he realized good friends may be concerned with each other's problems; that the government of Cuba was appreciative of the American concern in the forthcoming elections; and that the government of Cuba realized that the Ambassador also meant to call upon agitators and terrorists in Cuba to desist in their campaign of terrorism at the time the Ambassador ex­pressed hope that constitutional guarantees would be restored.

However, Santiago Rey's statement did not alter the gov­ernment of Cuba's intentions to restore guarantees at the expiration of the current period of suspension on January 29. On January 18, Dr. Guell reiterated, in confidence, that guar­antees would be restored at the end of the month, subject to no unforeseen violence erupting.

Encounters between the Army and rebel forces continued. The pro-Castro American press played up the rebel attacks. According to rebel reports various towns would be captured and occupied by the rebels. However, such towns could be held for only a few hours. The rebels would withdraw before the Army arrived. The American press built up the rebel re­ports and discounted the official reports that government troops had suffered no casualties in their encounters with rebel forces. Pro-Castro press circles referred to the Cuban Army as the "bullet-proof army:"

On January 20, 1958, the six-man Cuban delegation repre­senting the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC) returned from an executive committee meeting of the Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT) held in Washing­ton from January 13-15, 1958. The CTC secretary, Eusebio Mujal, reported that the ORIT executive committee had unani­mously agreed to declare that it had absolute confidence that the guarantees set by the Cuban Government and the legis­lative power for the elections would be complied with and that this would carry the country along the road to democracy, peace, and liberty.

With the support of the armed services and the labor lead­ers, plus a boom economy, the government of Cuba appeared for the time being safely entrenched at the beginning of 1958.

THE Embassy had been receiving reports of the maltreatment of various 26th of July leaders, who were being held in the Santiago jail. They were: Antonio Buch, Javier Pazos, Armando Hart, and Emilio Vallejo. As a result of the interest shown by the Embassy, and because of press reports, on January 18 newsmen in Santiago were permitted to visit the revolutionary leaders. General Alberto del Rio Chaviano, Commander-in-­Chief of the Armed Forces of Oriente Province, explained that the purpose of the invitation for the newsmen to visit the revolutionary leaders was to disprove accounts in the American press that they had been tortured or killed. Newsmen re­ported that the prisoners appeared to be in good physical condition. The Embassy received reports from Intelligence sources that the mothers of Antonio Buch and Armando Hart were permitted to visit their sons. Despite this incident stories of police brutalities still persisted.

Shortly after my return to Cuba, I informed President Batista that he would receive delivery of the armored cars. I then said, "Mr. President, may I make a suggestion and ask that you will not consider it as intervening in the affairs of your country?"

President Batista replied, "You are at liberty to say any­thing you want, Mr. Ambassador."

I pointed out that his public relations in the United States were extremely poor and I suggested that it would create a favorable reaction in the United States if he were able to remove some of the police officials who had been accused of excessive violence. The President told me that he agreed, but that it would be very difficult for him to take such action as it would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Batista had a tiger by the tail. In accordance with my consultations at the Department, I further suggested to Batista that he try to create an appropriate atmosphere for general elections, and that he should declare a general amnesty for political prisoners.

President Batista agreed with these suggestions and re­ferred to them in a speech which he made before a political gathering. At the same time, he announced his intention to end the suspension of constitutional guarantees in all but Oriente Province, and to lift the press censorship, which was done on January 25, 1958­

However, the State Department later failed to live up to its promise to deliver the twenty armored cars.

Since the previous fall, I had made every effort during many meetings with Batista to obtain the restoration of con­stitutional guarantees and the lifting of the press censorship. Batista had finally agreed, although he was complaining bit­terly about United States failure to enforce its neutrality laws.

Bodies, ammunition, and arms were being shipped in a steady stream from Florida and were being delivered to the revolutionaries in the hills of the Sierra Maestra.

Finally, due to the efforts of our able Assistant Attorney General William F. Tompkins, the justice Department ob­tained an indictment by the Federal Grand Jury in February 1958 against Dr. Prio Socarras, former President of Cuba, who had been the main source of shipment of contraband arms from Florida to the revolutionists. Agents of Prio were the biggest offenders and for some time they openly defied United States neutrality laws by shipping materiel from Florida to the revolutionary forces in the Sierra Maestra and the Sierra del Escambray.

In addition to Dr. Prio and his agents there were many active groups operating in the United States to bring about the downfall of the Batista government.

The Civic Resistance Movement, an organization formed in Santiago de Cuba to aid and abet the 26th of July Move­ment, was operating in the United States. Among other groups operating in the United States were the Workers Universal, the Democratic Party, Fourth of April Organization, and the Party of the Cuban People.

On February 19, 1959, at a meeting with the President of the Republic, I suggested that he invite representatives of (a) the United Nations, (b) the Organization of American States, and (c) the world press to witness the elections. Ba­tista was receptive but indicated that the timing for such a move was very important. At the moment, he said, the govern­ment was occupied with the filing of political slates.

Some of the middle-of-the-road press in Cuba endorsed the elections and stated that the ballot box would be the only solution to the problem. The newspaper Prensa Libre urged both sides to arrive at a peaceful solution. El Mundo, whose publisher was anti-Batista, stated in an editorial at the end of January 1958, "The basic problem for Cuba of re-establishing institutional normality should be solved at the ballot box in a climate of absolute guarantees for all. With the re­establishment of constitutional guarantees and the lifting of censorship, the government has taken an important step toward making elections feasible. If a free climate is established as the gov­ernment has promised, it is the duty of the opposition to mobilize civically to the ballot box."

Fidel Castro was violently opposed to elections and an­nounced that anyone, including the political opponents of Batista who participated in general elections, would be im­prisoned or killed by the revolutionaries.

By December 1957, it was becoming more and more clear that the only way to salvage the situation was eventually to have Batista relinquish the Presidency and concurrently ap point a broadly based national unity government without Castro and without representatives of the terrorists, but in­cluding representatives of the better elements of the opposi­tion. The mandate of such a broadly based national unity government would only be in effect until general elections had been held.

I had an exchange of views with this in mind with Cuban civic leaders, among them being Dr. Guillermo Belt, former Ambassador from Cuba to the United States. lie was very knowledgeable about Castro and was in touch with many prominent Cubans who would be willing to serve in a broadly based national unity government. However, the co-operation of none of these individuals could be obtained without the support of the United States, as no such plan could be effective without our support.

Luis Machado, former Cuban Ambassador to the United States, was also very active in attempting the formation of another peace committee, which was never formed.

Guillermo Belt was anti-Batista but had good reason to fear Castro much more. Dr. Belt was Cuba's representative at the Ninth Inter-American Conference that convened in Bogota, March 30-May 2, 1948, at the time of the "Bogotazo," which occurred on April 9, 1948. The "Bogotazo" of 1948 started with the assassination of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, Liberal leader, so as to provoke the uprising of the masses that com­prised the Liberal party, since Gaitan enjoyed immense popu­larity. The Bogota uprising was Communist-inspired and Com­munist-controlled, by a key group of international Communist leaders and activists who were brought to Bogota for that purpose. The effort to shatter the Ninth Inter-American Con­ference at Bogota and to demonstrate to the world the power of the Communist-led mob to spread havoc was part of the general anti-United States strategy.*

* Nathaniel Weyl gives an authentic account of the Bogota uprising in Red Star over Cuba.

At the Bogota uprising, Fidel Castro played his first seri­ous role as an active organizer of Communist insurrection. He was then twenty-two years old and a student at Havana Uni versity Law School. It was Dr. Guillermo Belt who gave asylum to Fidel Castro in the Cuban Embassy and arranged for his safe conduct to Cuba after the Bogota uprising. Dr. Belt told me Fidel Castro was accused of committing several murders at the Bogota uprising.

When I asked Dr. Belt why he had given asylum to Castro in the Cuban Embassy and why he had arranged for Castro's safe conduct to Cuba, he replied he was unaware at the time of Castro's crimes.

The Department of State must have been fully informed not only of Fidel Castro's police record but also of his active participation in the Communist-inspired and Communist­-controlled uprising in Bogota. Yet, no one in the State Depart­ment ever mentioned the Bogota uprising to me during the briefing period in the State Department when I was being prepared to assume my new post as Chief of Mission in Havana. I cannot recall anyone making a derogatory remark regarding Fidel Castro during that time, although Mr. Rubottom and Mr. Wieland arranged to have me briefed on Castro's virtues by Herbert Matthews, whom they accepted as an ex­pert, I can never recall during my briefing or while I was Chief of Mission in Havana any expression of approval from the Fourth Floor of the friendly government of Cuba.

My first information of Castro's part in the Bogota up­rising came from Dr. Belt, months after I had assumed my post as Chief of Mission in Havana. I was not told that As sistant Secretary of State for Latin American affairs, Roy Rubottom, at the time of the Bogota uprising, was in Bogota, Colombia, serving as Secretary and Consul in the American Embassy from 1947-1949.** Secretary Rubottom also served as Secretary to the United States Delegation, Ninth International Conference of American States, Bogota, Colombia, 1948.*** I was not aware of this fact until after I testified before the Senate Committee.

**Listed in Who's Who in America, Vol. 28.

*** Ibid.

Fidel Castro was a member of the Communist group aimed at wrecking the organization to which Secretary Rubottom served as Secretary (Ninth International Conference of Ameri­can States)­

To return to my conversations with the Cuban civic lead­ers, none of them would dare risk incurring the wrath of both the Batista government and Fidel Castro unless a peace plan had a chance of success. They knew they could not succeed without the support of the United States. A national unity government would only act as a provisional government and would remain in office only long enough to hold general elec­tions.

I had many meetings with the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Luigi Centoz, for an exchange of views along these lines. The Papal Nuncio, a charming, elderly gentleman with keen, piercing blue eyes, had very little knowledge of English. In spite of my lessons, my Spanish was still very poor. Therefore, our conversations were carried on in French.

It was the hope of the Papal Nuncio that a bridge could be established between Castro and Batista. In the words of the Papal Nuncio: "Pour etablir un pont entre Batista et Castro:" However, he agreed that peace should be sought through a national unity government.

When the Papal Nuncio asked if the United States Gov­ernment would lend its support to our plans, I regretted to say that I was unable to get any committment from the State Department. The State Department would not permit me to give any indications of support to the Roman Catholic Church. The position of the State Department was that only if the efforts of the Church were proven successful would the United States issue any public statement of endorsement. To do other­wise would be considered intervention.

It was my understanding with the Papal Nuncio that the national unity government would include members of the political opposition, representatives of the revolutionaries, and members of the government of Cuba -- representatives of all segments. It was to be a broadly-based government and Batista was to preside. Although the hierarchy of the Church took the position that peace should be obtained through a national unity government, not all of the Roman Catholic Church took the same position. There was discord among members of the Church. The Accion Catolica and the JOC (Young Catholic Workers) were hoping for the fall of Batista and were sym­pathetic to Castro.

While I was representing the United States in Cuba, Castro's representatives were receiving a sympathetic ear on the Fourth Floor of the State Department.

In July of 1958, at a conference in Caracas, Venezuela, a confederation was formed of the revolutionary groups, known as the Civic Revolutionary Front. Dr. Jose Miro Cardona, a political exile, acted as secretary of this association. He told me that he had become a very good friend of William Wieland of our State Department.

In addition to the legally established representative of the revolutionaries, Ernesto Betancourt, the State Department established a liaison with the revolutionaries through Dr. Miro Cardona, former Dean of the Cuban Bar Association. Dr. Miro Cardona, a Fidelista, was strongly opposed to any solution that did not turn the government of Cuba over to Castro. Despite their dealings with the representatives of the revolu­tionaries, the State Department maintained that it was not intervening in Cuban affairs.

At the end of January Fidel Castro was in a conciliatory mood. He sent a proposal to Batista to end Cuba's civil war. It was reported that Castro would agree to general elections under President Batista, provided the elections were super­vised throughout the island by the Organization of American States, and provided Batista would agree to the withdrawal of all government military forces from Oriente Province. Castro also wanted the Army to leave behind all equipment, as the rebels were in dire need of equipment.

In an exclusive interview with Homer Bigart of the New York Times, Castro explained why he wanted to have military control of Oriente as a precondition to elections. "With his own troops guarding Oriente polls and with foreign observers liberally scattered throughout all Provinces, Senor Castro be­lieves that his 26th of July Movement would sweep the elec­tion."

The New York Times editorial writer went on to say that Senor Castro's proposal was submitted to Congressman Manuel de Jesus Leon Ramirez of Manzanillo on January 28 and that the representative later conferred with members of the Batista Cabinet.

Rumors of Castro's offer leaked out in Havana. Although Batista most likely would not accept Castro's demand for evacuation of Oriente, he had personally assured me that he would agree to OAS observers witnessing the general elections. Here was an opportunity for the United States, with the aid of the Church, to establish a "bridge between Castro and Batista."

In early February, the rebel strength was at a low ebb and Castro was much more conciliatory. He was concerned that he might be losing the sympathetic support of the United States, because of the arrest in Miami of Dr. Carlos Prio Socarras for having violated United States neutrality laws.

Were the State Department willing, this was an opportune time for me to approach Batista about absenting himself from Cuba and appointing a broadly-based national unity govern ment excluding Castro. On the grounds of non-intervention, the State Department never seriously explored any suggested plan for a peaceful solution that would exclude Castro. There­fore, the Cuban political situation could only further decline.

Castro publicly insinuated that a deal had been made between the United States and the Cuban government. Ac­cording to Castro, Batista had been prevailed upon to restore constitutional guarantees in return for United States agreement to take action against Cuban revolutionary groups in the United States who were shipping arms and money to the Sierra.

In the latter part of February 1958, the Roman Catholic Church of Cuba came to the decision to mediate in the poli­tical affairs of Cuba by itself. It was originally planned that a committee should be appointed with representatives of the Church, labor, the universities, civic organizations, and the press. Such a committee would first visit the President. This was good news at the time because in this way a peaceful solution might 6e obtained. The people of Cuba, who were now tiring of the revolution, were greatly encouraged by the possibility of a peaceful solution through the Church.

On the first of March, 1958, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba, under the leadership of the Cardinal and the Papal Nuncio, took a definite stand by releasing a statement which called on the revolutionaries of Cuba to desist from their terroristic activities, and called on the gov­ernment of Cuba to bring about a peaceful solution through the formation of a national unity government. The statement, which was signed by the Church hierarchy, did not go into details as to what groups should be included in the national unity government. In reply to my question, the Papal Nuncio said the Church had in mind leaders of the opposition group, but not Fidel Castro.

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