Castro versus the Eisenhower Administration

On January 4, 1959, Castro named a judge, Manuel Urrutia, president. Urrutia's cabinet consisted of other anti-Batista liberals, but it was Castro's opinion that Urrutia would wait for him before making a decision.

The immediate agenda for Castro was Cuba's economy, which had been declining in 1958 -- a year of recession in the United States. In March, the telephone industry was nationalized in response to a special hostility that had risen in Cuba against International Telephone and Telegraph.

Also on Castro's agenda was his version of war-crime trials. Around 700 of Batista's enforcers were executed, the firing squads creating discomfort in the United States where they were shown on television -- a discomfort Castro attributed to people in the U.S. not knowing Batista-like repression and torture except through novels and movies. Castro compared his shootings of Batista murderers favorably against the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where innocent women and children had been killed. And there was other rhetoric from Cuba that displeased people in Washington.

In April, 1959, Castro went to the United States, invited by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Castro and his entourage went determined to avoid appearing to be begging for help from the Yankees. Some in the Eisenhower administration recognized that Cuba could use loans to restore its economy, and they hoped that help and good relations might tame Castro. Others in the administration were uninterested in helping Castro. They disliked Castro's talk of neutralism in the Cold War as much as they did the neutralism of Nasser of Egypt and Nehru of India. Some saw Castro's rhetoric as a danger to the standing of the United States in various nations across Latin America. The new Secretary of State, Christian Herter, did not like Castro's emotionalism and his waving his arms around when he spoke. And suspicions existed that Raul Castro and Che Guevara had communist sympathies.

Eisenhower snubbed Castro, leaving town to play golf. Instead, Vice President Nixon met Castro in his office, and they talked for three hours. Nixon asked about elections, and Castro told him that the Cuban people did not want elections, that they were suspicious of elections and believed that elections produced bad government. Nixon asked him about the over-ruling of the acquittal of Batista's aviators, and Castro spoke of carrying out the will of the people, leaving Nixon with the impression that Castro was too inclined to follow the passions of the mob rather than leading a nation in a rule of law. Nixon asked Castro about communism, and, after Castro left, Nixon complained that Castro was "either incredibly naive about communism or under communist discipline." His guess, he said, was the former.

Castro laid a wreath at the Lincoln Memorial, and he was invited to meet the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, telling them that he would not expropriate the property of Americans and that he was against dictatorships and for a free press.

The Eisenhower administration chose to wait and see how Castro behaved rather than to offer him any assistance. The director of the CIA, Allen Dulles (brother of John Foster Dulles who had just died of cancer), spoke of the possibility of using punishment politics. He spoke of Congress reducing the purchasing of Cuban sugar if Castro did not prove cooperative.

Castro returned to Cuba having said to a Social Democrat friend that he was not a communist because communism was the dictatorship of a single class and meant hatred and class struggle. On television he told the Cuban people that extremists had no place in the Cuban revolution. He appeared to be a free-enterprise nationalist but in search of remaking Cuban society.

By now Cuba's Communist Party had joined the Castro's revolution -- not unlike the Bolsheviks in early 1917 who had joined the revolution that overthrew Tsar Nicholas of Russia. And the Communist Party complained that Castro was endangering Cuba's revolution.

Castro instituted agrarian reform. With exceptions having to do with productivity, estates larger than 1,000 acres were subject to expropriation, with compensation paid to the owners in 20-year bonds at 4.5 percent annual interest -- higher interest than MacArthur's land reform in Japan, and repayment faster than the land reform in Taiwan. In the future, land could be bought only by Cubans; after the harvest of 1960, sugar plantations would have to be owned by Cubans; and agricultural holdings were to be no less than 67 acres. Sugar company stocks fell on the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. executives protested to the U.S. government. More talk erupted in the U.S. about communism in Cuba, and the Eisenhower administration argued with Cuba over its new agrarian reform.

During the agrarian reform, hostility was in full swing between anti-communist members of Castro's revolution (the 26 of July Movement) and its communist members. The anti-communists were calling the communists melons (green on the outside, as in green fatigues, and red on the inside). The Communists denounced the red-baiting and spoke of the need for unity. Bombs exploded in Havana, believed to be the work of counter-revolutionaries, and Castro veered to the side of those supporting unity.

In increasing numbers anti-communists began abandoning Castro. President Urrutia objected to the heightened radicalization of Castro's movement and resigned. So too did his prime minister, José Cardona. Osvaldo Dorticós was now Cuba's new president and Castro was the prime minister. One of Castro's old anti-communist compañeros, Hubert Matos, was soon to be arrested for treason and having disrupted agrarian reform. He was to be tried and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In September, Khrushchev visited the United States and met Eisenhower at Camp David, creating what was called the "spirit of Camp David." The Eisenhower administration believed it was doing enough for peace, and it was facing criticism from some who thought it was being too soft on communism.

In February, 1960, the Soviet Union's Anastas Mikoyan visited Cuba to inaugurate a Soviet trade exhibition. He signed a five-year trade agreement with Cuba, promising the purchase of one million tons of sugar annually. Cuba was to receive petroleum products in exchange. The Eisenhower administration decided to work with anti-Castro groups inside Cuba in hope of overthrowing Castro.

In March, a French ship, carrying a shipment of Belgian small arms, exploded in Havana harbor, killing dozens of workers and soldiers. Castro publicly accused the CIA of sabotage, and the U.S. protested the accusation. Also in March, Eisenhower ordered the CIA to train Cuban exiles for an invasion of Cuba -- with Batistianos forbidden to join the force. Eisenhower approved $13 million for the project.

Soviet tankers arrived with crude oil. The three oil refineries in Cuba -- the Esso and Texaco refineries and a refinery owned by the British -- refused to refine the oil. Castro nationalized the refineries. Castro saw the U.S. as having declared economic war on Cuba. And the following month -- July -- the Cuban government passed a nationalization law providing for the expropriation of foreign holdings in Cuba. Two days later, President Eisenhower reduced the purchase of Cuban sugar by 95 percent, cutting off 80 percent of Cuban exports to the United States. Then the Soviet Union announced that it was willing to buy the sugar that had been destined for the United States.

Anti-Castro Cubans in the Sierra Maestras, trying to replicate Castro's success, were caught and shot. Neighborhood watch groups had arisen, watching for people bent on sabotage, treason and violence against the revolution. Castro was now more strongly on the side of those advocating unity and opposing "red-baiting," and his old friend Che Guevara was describing himself openly as a communist.

Seeing a threat of U.S. intervention, Khrushchev announced that Cuba could be defended with rockets. He declared the Monroe Doctrine an anachronism and said that the Soviet Union would purchase the sugar that the U.S. was rejecting. On August 16, members of the CIA launched their first assassination attempt against Castro, with poisoned cigars.

A leading journalist in the U.S., Walter Lippmann, anticipated the tactics from the 1970s towards Communist China, favoring economic cooperation and friendly relations with Cuba. He criticized the Eisenhower administration for having "pushed the Cubans behind the iron curtain." The right thing to do, he wrote, "is keep the way open for their return."

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