Foreign Relations: The Cuba Debate

If the Soviet military buildup in Cuba has done nothing else, it has given rise to a significant and intensifying U.S. debate —one that might even lead to effective action some day.

For the Administration, Secretary of State Dean Rusk was last week’s chief spokesman. At an “informal” Washington meeting, he earnestly urged 19 Latin American foreign ministers and representatives to recommend that their countries cut off all remaining trade with Cuba, take self-defense measures to combat Communist aggression or subversion from Cuba, restrict travel of their own citizens to Cuba for possible Communist indoctrination, and encourage “Cuban national liberation” groups in their nations.

At a White House luncheon, President Kennedy added to the argument. Said he to the Latin American ministers: “The American republics must act now to contain the expansion of Communism from Cuba, and also take those steps which will lead to the liberation of Cuba. The Communist Party seeks to establish a springboard for an attack on the entire hemisphere by subversion, by infiltration, by all the other rather obvious apparatus that the Communist system uses so effectively. Communism can be the death of this hemisphere.”

After the luncheon, the ministers promptly plunged into their own debate—not over what they really should or could do about Cuba, but mainly over whether or not they should try to issue a communique. Although one was finally produced, it was hardly calculated to cause even one grey hair in Castro’s beard. It recognized the obvious—that “the Sino-Soviet intervention in Cuba is an attempt to convert the island into an armed base for Communist penetration of the Americas and subversion of the democratic institutions of the hemisphere.”

A Piece of Paper. What to do about it? The most the ministers could agree on was to intensify surveillance of arms shipments to Cuba “to prevent the secret accumulation in the island of arms that can be used for offensive purposes against the hemisphere.” There were vague phrases about combating subversion. And there was outright rejection of direct action: “A military intervention of Communist powers in Cuba cannot be justified as a situation analogous to the defensive measures adopted in other parts of the free world in order to face Soviet imperialism.” One U.S. aide summed it all up: “They unanimously agreed upon a piece of paper.”

Rusk turned briefly, and perhaps more profitably, from a debate to a monologue. He told the ministers that the U.S. will close its ports to any ships—including those of its NATO allies—which carry cargoes of any type to Cuba, then seek return payloads from the U.S. Neither will the U.S. open its harbors to any government cargo, such as surplus food, to be carried on any ship owned by a firm engaged in Soviet-Cuba traffic. This, too, would make it difficult for ships to pick up transatlantic loads in both directions—and one-way loads are not profitable. At week’s end. unofficial negotiations for the release of Bay of Pigs invaders from Castro prisons approached a climax. However welcome, it would do nothing to loosen the Soviet grip on the island.

Not Castro’s, but Khrushchev’s. At non-Administration levels, the debate was far hotter. Connecticut’s Democratic Senator Thomas Dodd. appearing on David Susskind’s all-talk Open End, called bluntly for a blockade. “I don’t call it Castro’s Cuba,” he said. “I call it Khrushchev’s Cuba. I suggest we start with a partial blockade. If it isn’t adequate, we move to a total one. How much of a threat does it have to become? How many lives will we have to pay to stop it? It would have taken very few in the beginning, some more later, many more now. I think it will be a catastrophe if it goes any further.”

On the same program, Florida’s Democratic Senator George Smathers argued that a blockade may not be enough, urged the recognition of a Cuban government-in-exile and the creation of a hemispheric military force, like NATO. “We have to have some program that is calculated to get rid of Communism in Cuba and we cannot do it by some sort of defensive blockade,” said Smathers. “I think what we ought to do is just what we did in Europe, where we organized an admittedly military group of nations that felt about Communism just the way we did—that are prepared to fight and will fight.”

New York’s Republican Senator Jacob Javits, speaking to the U.S. Inter-American Council in Manhattan, said that a blockade or invasion of Cuba by the U.S. might eventually be needed, but urged first that President Kennedy call an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States to find out if it will act on Cuba. If it refuses (which it will), Javits said that an attempt should be made to establish a Caribbean defense organization.

Toward a Consensus. Whatever the final action, Javits emphasized that the alternatives are a legitimate subject of nationwide debate. “This does not mean that the President should improvidently be pushed or rushed in exercising his great constitutional responsibility for the nation’s foreign policy,” he said. “But it does mean that officials like myself must express their views so that the national consensus, which will influence the President’s policy, may be truly representative of the nation.”

As a first step in a meaningful debate, Javits asked President Kennedy to “describe the seriousness of the Cuban crisis to the American people directly on national television and radio. I call upon him to be blunt not only with us but with his Administration. I call upon him to recognize the urgency plainly required by the situation. The American people are disturbed about the Cuban situation, disturbed as they have not been since the Korean war.”