See You Later, Alligator

by William F. Buckley

  Adding immediately, “Okay, this is Sunday, right? Fidel or no, we will meet on Tuesday morning?”

  “Certainly on Tuesday morning. Not inconceivably on Monday evening, if I can confer with Fidel before his usual conference hour. Be sure to stay here tomorrow evening.” He got up to go. But turned, as he approached the door.

  “And don’t worry about Catalina. I will explain to her why you cannot visit with her on Monday night.” Che Guevara smiled and did his informal salute, touching his beret.

  “Hasta luego, Caimán.”

  Twenty-nine

  Che Guevara communicated in a single sentence what the American, Caimán, had been told by Washington, and over the telephone Castro instructed Che to round up Valdés, Raúl, and Dorticós—still the only Cubans privy to the ultimate nature of ongoing arrangements with the Soviet Union—for a conference at midnight on Monday.

  Castro, seated at the head of the table but this time in his secret suite in the Habana-Libre Hilton, beckoned to his aide to shut the doors and prevent anyone else from coming in. He looked tired, having orated a total of seven hours that day at three political rallies, but he ate heartily from the fruit bowl, and then some bread and cheese with a tall glass of red wine. He lit his cigar and turned to Che.

  “I would guess this means the American invasion is scheduled, wouldn’t you? The Soviets have still not been able to advise us exactly when it is to be launched, but it is clear that it will come before their November elections, and now there are reports being published in Washington and New York about equipment coming in here from the Soviet Union. Wouldn’t you, if you were Kennedy, choose this moment to strike?”

  Raúl spoke before Che could do so, spoke in ferocious accents. “With what we have ready right now, Fidel, it will be a bloody encounter, and lots of gringos will be eaten up by my guns before they establish anything like a beachhead.”

  “Raúl, we are not here to underrate the Cuban military. But it is just this clear: Until we get the big weapons, we are vulnerable. If the United States decides to treat Cuba as it treated—Okinawa, then Cuba will be conquered. Our job is exactly what we denned it to be last January: to keep the Americans stalled until we get the missiles here. That will be the end of the United States threat. Now, Che: Do you have any ideas on how to get Caimán to persuade Washington to put the Cuban Acuerdo back on the agenda?”

  “I suppose we could offer them a major concession.”

  “Like what?”

  Che thought. “We have—as you know—small military missions at our embassies in Mexico and in Guatemala. I suppose we could recall them, making a significant noninterventionist gesture. That might be something.”

  Raúl again: “But would the Russians understand?”

  “Obviously we could communicate to the proper party in the Kremlin what our motivation was,” Castro said, a little impatiently. He thought, and puffed: “Not bad, not bad. The ‘withdrawal’ could be arranged to get more foreign notice than local notice, am I right?”

  Valdés said there was no longer any reason to give it any local notice, if that was the Comandante’s decision. “The press and the radio are in absolutely sound hands, and Carlos Franqui’s Revolutión is about the only paper we worry about. But even there, I think arrangements can be made …”

  “You’re not to harm Franqui,” Castro said.

  “Don’t harm him then,” Raúl said about the editor—a communist, but not reliable; “just kick his ass out of the country.”

  “Franqui is a problem I will face at another time,” Castro said. And to Valdés, “No, it does not matter, Ramiro, if it receives some publicity. I could go on television and say that it was merely a reconsolidation—something of the sort.” And then to Guevara, “But would that be enough to influence Washington?”

  “I shouldn’t think it would be enough to deter the invasion if the plans are firm to get on with it. Nor is it likely that the United States will cancel or not cancel an invasion merely because they have two agents in Cuba who might get hurt. I have no reason to believe that Caimán has any idea there’s an invasion scheduled. I myself am not one hundred percent convinced that such an invasion is scheduled.”

  “Are you doubting the word of Khrushchev’s own son-in-law, reporting what Soviet Intelligence has absolutely established?” Raúl asked.

  “Soviet Intelligence can be wrong, Raúl. I do believe we should play for time until those missiles arrive. But I also think we should push on the American front, and that before we see their final proposals we’re going to have to move beyond this paperwork business and make a few concrete gestures. Like the Mexican-Guatemalan military mission recall, and maybe one or two others.”

  “Like what?” Fidel asked.

  “Why not ask them?”

  “Ask them what?”

  “Ask them, through Caimán, to suggest a gesture of some sort, more or less as earnest money.”

  “What kind of a gesture?” Fidel Castro’s voice was demanding now.

  “I would precisely leave it to them to think of one. We shouldn’t be ridiculous about it. Obviously they are not going to suggest that we suspend diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, or that you get Raúl here to inaugurate a Havana branch of the National Association of Manufacturers. But let them think of something. That will take time. And we can then take time thinking about their request. Look, if the idea is to keep them on the hook, let’s keep them on the hook. Meanwhile, my commission doesn’t have to be suspended, not until we see what kind of a deal they would actually be willing to make if we pushed them as hard as we could.”

  “The kind of deal they are willing to make,” said Raúl, looking at his brother rather than at Che, “is to hand Cuba back to the capitalists and the gringos and then maybe they will forgive us.”

  “I assumed you wanted a serious analysis of the question, Fidel.”

  Castro leaned back in his chair and puffed on his cigar. “What are your thoughts, Osvaldo?”

  “I would be guided in this by your instincts, Fidel.”

  “Ramiro?”

  “I would agree. But it can’t be overemphasized that any apparent concessions we make must be explained, before we go public with them, to Moscow.”

  “Of course,” Raúl said.

  “Of course,” Dorticós said.

  “Very well then,” Castro said. “Let’s hear from Raúl on exactly what it is that is now fully installed, and what the exact dates will be for the missiles to arrive.”

  “But Fidel,” Che interjected. “I am meeting with the American, Caimán, tomorrow morning. What am I to tell him?”

  “Tell him we are very disappointed, that we have truly been looking for a way to have better relations. Go ahead on both your ideas. The one on Mexico and Guatemala. And the one about a ‘gesture’ of a kind Washington comes up with. Only, of course, coordinate with Dorticós. Moscow must have word of this before Washington.”

  Che turned to Dorticós. “That means you will have to get word tonight to Moscow.”

  “Done,” said the President of Cuba.

  Thirty

  The next morning, after Che Guevara had left, Blackford was elated. He went to his typewriter and paused in attempting to contract as tightly as possible the text Velasco would take to the Swiss Embassy. In a half hour he had batted out 750 words. He read them aloud to Velasco. The final sentence of his cable read: “GIVEN ALL THE ABOVE I RESPECTFULLY REQUEST THAT YOU AUTHORIZE A CONTINUATION OF CURRENT MISSION. AWAITING YOUR REPLY. CAIMAN.”

  He felt exuberant when Velasco came back from the embassy, the cable dispatched, and suggested to Velasco that they invite Catalina to lunch with them and go out someplace, perhaps for a picnic. “We could put together something here—Manuel can come up with something—and on the way here Catalina can go to the commissary and get a bottle of wine.”

  Velasco smiled. “I’ll stay here. I am very happy with my book, now that our paperwork is suddenly suspended. You and Catalina go alone.” />
  “You sure?”

  “I’m very very sure. Besides, if Washington reacts quickly, I am free to go to the Swiss Embassy.”

  Every now and again everything seems to work, as it did that day. Catalina was at her office. She was instantly and utterly enthusiastic about knocking off for the rest of the day, and she collaborated with Blackford with the gusto of a sophomore planning to go to a fraternity ball. She arranged to get an official dispensation to the effect that Joe Bustamente would not need to accompany them, she volunteered to get all the food and drink (“It will be my surprise”), reminding him that, after all, her office was next door to the commissary (Why did Caimán think I elected to situate my office where it is?). And at one-thirty she was there, not even in a jeep but in a 1958 Oldsmobile (“I borrowed it from Fidel. He said to keep it as long as I wanted”), and she knew of a totally private beach (“It is generally used only for political executions, so I declared that no one was to be shot today”) and that therefore he should bring swimming trunks (“On the other hand, why should we bother with bathing suits? Just bring a towel. And some cologne. Or have you used it up?”).

  They drove down the Vía Blanca thirty kilometers on what must, by Cuban standards, have passed for a superhighway. Catalina drove fast, and with skill. There was virtually no traffic on the road, until they hit a column of heavy military vehicles, presumably Russian, lugging great supplies of military goods, or perhaps building materials. It depressed them to have to cut their speed down to the military’s 60 kph, which for a full ten minutes they had to do, until Catalina spotted a long stretch of road without contrary traffic, at which point she raced past the convoy. Absentmindedly Blackford counted: eighteen trucks, driven by white-skinned men in uniform. Certainly Russian, he supposed.

  By two-thirty they had arrived, having taken a side lane that had obviously once been private. It led to the beach, past a huge mansion. She had a key to the beach house, entered it, and directed Blackford to pull a small table outdoors. To the table, under a palm tree, she brought out her feast, making several trips to the parked car. Lobsters, and Swedish crackers and caviar and onions, cold chicken and fresh carrot salad, and chocolates, and white wine. And a portable radio, tuned to the least jingoistic music on the band.

  They ate, and talked, and then took off their clothes and ran into the surf and ducked each other and, under the water, ran their hands over each other’s bodies, and went then into the bathhouse and coupled, con brio, and Blackford thought that politics could be romantic, especially when the prospects perceptibly heightened for affecting great events peaceably.

  They slept, and the sun now was low, its light shimmering in through the palm leaves to the bed. They woke together and she said, in Spanish, that this had been a wonderful afternoon, and he said yes, it had been a wonderful afternoon, and added that he wished his Spanish could be more poetic. She replied that he might begin by using the familiar mood with her, given that he was otherwise extremely familiar with her, and he said that English was really a far more useful language inasmuch as English didn’t distinguish between a formal and an informal mode of address—“Everybody is just ‘you’ in English.”

  “What about ‘thee’ and ‘thou’?” she countered, and he said that was just for when you addressed God and King Arthur and she said that socialists didn’t believe in either God or King Arthur, and he said that he would not ask her to reflect on this declaration when they met in the next world, and she said that the next world could not possibly be as much fun as this world was—“This afternoon.”

  “Why just this afternoon?”

  “Because all afternoons are not like this one.”

  “Have you spoken to Che today?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Did he tell you what is going on?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He got up, went out to the beach table, and came back with his shorts on and sat down in an easy chair opposite her. Responding to this formality, she drew a towel over her body.

  “What do you think?” he asked her.

  “I was pleased.”

  “Pleased by what?”

  “Pleased by what I learned about Fidel’s reaction. It was very different from Raúl’s reaction.”

  “I don’t suppose you would care to elaborate on that?”

  “No. But I am not sure I could, in any case. Everybody knows that Raúl is the most—dogmatic.”

  “Why does dogma demand eternal hostility between us?”

  “It’s funny you should say that when a year and a half ago you backed an invasion of Cuba.”

  Blackford didn’t reply.

  “Do you think we have a chance?”

  “On Operation Acuerdo?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think so. Do you know something?”

  “What?”

  “I trust Che. He is all screwed up about some very basic things. But I like him.”

  “I like you.”

  He leaned over, and they kissed. “We must go. There may be something waiting for me at the—” he almost used the Velasco-Oakes vernacular, but corrected himself—“at the Caimán-Hilton.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  They drove back at half the speed, and she let him off at the cottage, and they kissed again, lingeringly.

  Alejandro nodded at Caimán perfunctorily.

  In the sitting room, Velasco greeted him once again with a sheet of paper. It read, “EARLIER DECISION IS FINAL. RETURN IMMEDIATELY. MCCONE.”

  Thirty-one

  Some people don’t know what a toast is, for God’s sake. Come to think of it, it rather goes with his name. Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy. (He had spent a good five minutes that morning just memorizing the name.) Eleven syllables. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. That’s moderation for you. Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy, President of Ecuador. If he, JFK, ever gave a toast that long they’d cart him off to Walter Reed, and LBJ (ugh) would take over. Of course, be reasonable. The whole thing was being translated, which doubled its length. The longueur of the thing, as Jackie would put it. He wondered whether translations of nothing sound longer than translations of something? Here he is talking about “major changes” in the “social and economic structures” of the smaller countries. Would it sound shorter if he said that on reconsideration he thinks the military were right in forcing Ecuador to break relations with Castro last April? He had a feeling it would.

  That Oakes guy is something, Poor McCone. But he was right to talk to me about it. Had to call off that whole Che Guevara thing after that last speech by Ken Keating. Old Senator Keating charging that my administration is “indifferent” to the military buildup of Cuba.

  Wonder where in the hell he gets his figures? McCone says Keating’s estimates of Soviet military shipments are more than double the CIA’s. Keating must be full of baloney, but you can’t just say that to a senator. Still, to have a mission out there month after month after month, that does not make sense. And if the Republicans get wind of it, wow. Kennedy Emissary Plotting Recognition and Economic Aid to Castro While Dictator Develops Fortress Cuba Courtesy of Moscow.… No, it doesn’t make sense to run that risk. Do you think so? Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy?

  The President of the United States had a half smile of admiration and concentration on his face as the President of Ecuador cleared his throat and continued his toast.

  So we tell Oakes to come on back and the next day he appeals, wants us to think it over, we say no, next day he asks for a leave of absence. McCone wires him back, Permission denied, and Oakes cables back that he requests leave of absence without pay as he intends—get that, “intends”—to remain in Cuba as the personal guest of Che Guevara who has extended an invitation, and in the event he comes up with something he thinks of interest to the United States, may he use the Swiss facilities? Well, sure. But McCone was right to advise Che Guevara formally, through the Swiss, that Oakes wasn’t on assignment from me anymore. If Oakes manages to persuade C
he Guevara to overthrow Castro, kick out the Russians, and make a deal with us, I’ll be glad to give our 007 the handsomest secret medal we give to our secret agents. Either Guevara is just having us on—using Oakes—or else there’s a power struggle going on in Cuba. The more power struggles in Cuba the better. Yes indeed, that was a very searching point you just made, Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy. I must nod my head a little more often. But now that Oakes is discredited. No, not discredited. That’s the wrong word. Now that he no longer has official status, what can Che hope to use him for? Is he getting information from Oakes that Castro needs? But Oakes doesn’t know what our secrets concerning Cuba are. Funny. I kind of like his style, don’t you, Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy?

  The President smiled broadly, and applauded a patriotic obbligato in the speech.

  Maybe I’ll take up just that one point with McCone: Does Oakes know anything we care about? And still another point. Now that he’s an official guest of Che Guevara, maybe we can slip in there some stuff that would be useful for us to slip in. If Oakes insists on going to bed with Guevara, maybe we can give him a case of crabs. Wonder if McCone has a pill that gives crabs? If not I must remember in the next State of the Union to request an appropriation for a crab-pill, a crab-pill bill. Come on, Mr. President, Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy. He’s about to finish. What comes now, the Pledge of Allegiance?

  “That was a truly beautiful, moving toast, Mrs. Arosemena Monroy.” The President gave the first lady his arm, and they led the company to the East Room for coffee and brandy.

  Thirty-two

  Velasco had three times offered to stay in Cuba. Blackford said no, no, no. He didn’t intend to ruin Velasco’s career. He didn’t put it that way to him, he just said that it made no sense anymore, given that the detailed official mission was terminated, and that he would now be living—elsewhere. They had received a conciliatory cable from McCone advising that the facilities of the Swiss Embassy would continue to be available to Blackford, but that Velasco should return.