Foreign Relations: The Dilemma

TV’s Jack Paar said that it was the honorable thing for the U.S. to do. Republican Senator Barry Goldwater said that it was blackmail. Democratic Elder Stateswoman Eleanor Roosevelt saw it as an opportunity for U.S. humanitarianism to assert itself. Columnist Robert Ruark denounced it as an obscene, criminal proposition. Wherever the average American turned last week—to his television set, his newspaper, his favorite bartender or to his wife—he could get an argument. The subject of controversy: Fidel Castro’s idea of accepting U.S. tractors in exchange for prisoners taken in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. The U.S. dilemma: a strong sense of responsibility for the lives of the men captured in the U.S.-sponsored attack as balanced against a real repugnance for paying ransom money to such a tinhorn Commie as Fidel Castro.

Four days after Castro’s original offer, a fund-raising committee was formed with three distinguished Americans at its head: Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Milton Eisenhower and United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther. Not until three days later did the White House admit that President Kennedy himself had recruited the committee heads. At least one of the top committee members felt that he had been bilked by Kennedy: he had understood in his telephone conversation with the President that the whole project would receive publicly announced White House backing from the very start.

Anti-Yanqui Mishmash. Still, the Tractors for Freedom committee moved ahead. It sent Castro a tentative schedule for the exchange between men and machines, set a deadline for reply. Castro took his time, then, just a few hours before the deadline expired, cabled the committee. His message was a predictable mishmash of anti-Yanqui invective. He accused the committee of stalling—which must have seemed silly even to him. He charged the U.S. with aggression. He even offered to forgo his desire for tractors if the U.S. would only give up such prisoners as Pedro Albizu Campos, a mentally muddled leader of Puerto Rican terrorists who, in 1950, attempted to assassinate President Truman.

Then Castro tried to set a condition: “The raising and negotiation of this problem cannot be made only by cablegram, and it is better that a delegation should be sent to Cuba. In this there should be one of the principal members of the committee, preferably Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt or Milton Eisenhower.” Castro obviously was elated at the prospect of making propaganda headlines out of having a Roosevelt or an Eisenhower come hat in hand to Havana.

Milton Eisenhower and Eleanor Roosevelt turned down the invitation immediately. The committee then wired Castro: “The committee does not believe that the interests either of the prisoners involved or of Cuba’s need for raising agricultural production can be best served by a propaganda duel through an exchange of cables.” The committee was prepared to ship 100 tractors to Castro within two weeks, with other lots of 100 to follow. Neither Eleanor Roosevelt nor Milton Eisenhower would go to Havana —but the committee had in mind sending six U.S. engineers and farm experts to complete negotiations. And, following a proposal that had been made the day before by former U.S. Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, the committee suggested that the International Red Cross “handle the details relating to the release of the prisoners.” Mrs. Luce opposed the swap, but she felt that bringing in the Red Cross might clear up some U.S. official confusion and mismanagement.

Grisly Negotiation. At week’s end Castro agreed to the committee’s proposal for sending the six technicians, but insisted that they have power to discuss the “quality and amount” of the “indemnification” demanded by Cuba. That was where things stood, but it was perfectly predictable that Dictator Castro would drag the whole grisly negotiation out as long as possible—and then, maybe, turn the entire proposition down. As the negotiations and the cable exchanges went on last week, the public furor within the U.S. became increasingly intense. Many Americans believed deeply that the U.S. had a moral obligation to try to rescue the survivors. At the same time, most recognized that the ransom payments were humiliating to the U.S. There could be general agreement that the Kennedy Administration had bungled the whole business—because it gave the Government’s stamp of approval to the deal, then tried to fog over the official U.S. role in the matter.

Letters by the thousands rolled in to U.S. editors and Congressmen—and they were overwhelmingly against the exchange. Congress itself was sharply opposed. Balanced against such feelings was the evidence that Castro’s ransom demands had boomeranged against him as far as Latin American sentiment was concerned: national committees were gathering funds to rescue the Cuban invaders in a dozen Latin American states, and the whole affair had finally convinced thousands of Latinos, at long last, that Fidel Castro was in fact a Communist criminal.

Exploiting the troubled hearts of the Yanquis, Castro has cynically led the U.S. down a twisting road—and the end is nowhere in sight. Many an expert on Latin America suspects that, in the end, Castro will never permit the men-for-machines swap to be consummated. But if he does, the U.S. and its citizens must soon find a method for serving humanitarian instincts while at the same time preserving national honor. Such a method has so far been elusive.