by Tad Szulc
The removal of President Urrutia in July was dictated by the logic of Castro's revolutionary politics: The naïve, patriotic judge from Santiago he had named in the Sierra to be provisional president was now turning out to be an obstacle to the revolution. Having been restricted since February to signing laws prepared by Castro or the cabinet, by mid-spring Urrutia made himself even more vulnerable by staying away from cabinet sessions chaired by Castro and by delaying law-signing. Even López-Fresquet, the finance minister, wrote that Urrutia's actions were "a mistake" and "his conduct disrupted the functioning of the government. . . when Castro had an interest in the legislation in question, his animosity toward Urrutia increased. . . by his actions, Urrutia succeeded only in alienating the cabinet, which later offered no opposition to his overthrow." Then, Urrutia began to make anti-Communist speeches and television statements as if to force a confrontation with Castro he could not possibly win. Playing blindly into Castro's hands, he offered to go on a "leave of absence"—from which he did not propose to return—on the day in June when the first batch of moderates were fired from the cabinet. Urrutia did not realize that Castro believed a resignation was an attack on him and the revolution, and so let himself be talked out of leaving late in June. Fidel intended to control events himself.
On June 29, the air force chief, Major Díaz Lanz, who had piloted Castro's helicopter in the Ciénaga the previous month, defected to the United States, appearing before a Senate subcommittee in Washington to denounce communism in Cuba, and thereby quickening the crisis in Havana. That same week, Urrutia went on television to say, "I do not believe in communism and I am ready to debate these questions with anyone." Castro, now ready to go for the jugular, responded publicly, "I consider it not entirely honorable that if we are to avoid being called Communists we must embark on campaigns against them; no honorable government would do this . . ." On July 13, Urrutia again went on television to feed Castro more rope: "The Communists are inflicting terrible harm on Cuba." In retrospect, it is clear that Urrutia would have accomplished much more in his confrontation with Castro if he had resigned at the moment of his choice over the communist issue, which seemed to concern him so, but politically he was no match for the chief of the revolution.
When Fidel Castro was ready to strike, he marshaled the full panoply of revolutionary drama. On the evening of July 16, Cuban radio and television announced that Castro had resigned as prime minister (but not as Commander in Chief), because Urrutia had blocked approval of revolutionary laws and other government measures. He dropped out of sight for the next twenty-four hours. As it happened, Castro had ordered that all the Cuban peasants who wished to do so be brought to Havana for the celebrations of the sixth anniversary of the Moncada assault, and they began arriving en masse in the capital as the Urrutia guerrilla theater began to unfold. On July 17 the cabinet was summoned to the presidential palace, surrounded by troops and a growing crowd, but Urrutia was not to be seen. Defense Minister Martínez Sánchez appeared to be in charge as the ministers awaited further developments. In the evening, Castro went on television for a two-hour speech to explain that he had to resign because of Urrutia's attitude as president, and then he went on to link him with the Díaz Lanz defection, exclaiming, "This has come close to treason, companions; we have been on the brink of treason!" He charged Urrutia with fabricating a Communist "legend" in Cuba in order to provoke foreign aggression, and mentioned that the president had bought a house "for thirty or forty thousand dollars."
With crowds outside chanting demands for Urrutia's resignation, the president signed it while Castro was still on television. The ministers accepted the resignation and named Osvaldo Dorticós, the minister for drafting revolutionary laws, to be the new president. The proposal was made by Education Minister Armando Hart, one of Castro's most devoted associates, whereupon Fidel arrived at the cabinet meeting room to be "informed" of the change. Dorticós would be Castro's loyal collaborator. The drama, however, was still running its course, since Fidel required an overwhelming national show of support. So he attended a textile workers' rally at the sports stadium to hear pleas for his return to the premiership, and on July 23, revolutionary labor unions called an hour-long general strike to insist on his return. Castro had carried out a coup d'état by television, and now Habaneros and the visiting peasants, wearing straw hats and carrying sharp machetes inside brown leather sheaths, paraded around the city to hail their chief, songs about Fidel and the agrarian reform rising in the warm evening air. On July 26, Castro addressed a million of his supporters on the Civic Plaza, agreeing to be prime minister again and warning that "to attack Cuba is to attack all of Latin America."
In the meantime, however, Castro had to continue mending revolutionary fences at home, to defuse rising criticism of the Communist inroads in his regime and the Rebel Army. As in Urrutia's case, he considered all politically motivated resignations by important personages as acts of treason, and he acted accordingly when Major Huber Matos Benítez, military governor of Camagüey province and a top Sierra fighter, prepared to resign over the Communist issue. Tipped off on October 20 that Matos had sent him a resignation letter and that twenty officers would likewise resign, Castro dispatched Rebel Army Commander Camilo Cienfuegos to arrest the major, and himself rushed off to Camagüey. On the morning of October 21, he led a revolutionary crowd in a march on the provincial military headquarters to preempt whatever rebellion may have been brewing. The Matos episode held immense dangers for Castro in assuring the unity and loyalty of the Rebel Army, and potentially it was his worst political crisis since he assumed power. Because Díaz Lanz, the former air force commander, had flown over Havana that same day in a light plane from Florida dropping anti-Castro leaflets and allegedly machine-gunning the city, Fidel immediately linked him to the Matos affair as part of a larger American-based conspiracy also involving the hapless Urrutia. On October 26, Castro gathered once more an enormous crowd—around one million—in Havana to protest these counterrevolutionary plots, to announce officially the creation of the armed militia, and to consult his supporters if the revolution should restore the death penalty and revolutionary tribunals. The crowd shouted its approval, chanting, "Paredón! Paredón! (To the wall! To the wall!)." In December, after Castro's impassioned, prosecutorial speech, Matos was sentenced to twenty years in prison. Castro would not trust anyone else with the defense of the revolution at such a crucial time.
At the same time, he continued to consolidate revolutionary power and controls. The day before the Matos incident, Raúl Castro was named minister of revolutionary armed forces, making official his sway over the army. On November 26, Che Guevara took over the presidency of the National Bank while remaining in charge of national industry. Guevara's wartime deputy, Ramiro Valdés, became the head of DIER, the military intelligence and secret police, assisted by Manuel Piñeiro Losada, the red-bearded ideologue. But late in October, the revolution lost its second most popular leader after Fidel when Camilo Cienfuegos disappeared on a solo flight aboard his light plane from Camagüey to Havana. Despite a land and sea search personally coordinated by Castro, no trace of his aircraft was ever found, and Camilo joined the ever-expanding pantheon of revolutionary heroes upon whom today's myths still repose
The Cuban revolution's growing orientation toward socialism or communism was not matched at the outset by Soviet support or ties. This fact does away with demonological views that the Castro rebellion was planned all along with the Russians (or the Chinese) to create a Communist presence at the doorstep of the United States. On the contrary, there are convincing indications that Castro had to sell the Soviets on himself and his revolution when it became obvious that he needed them to survive economically and militarily in the light of United States antagonism. It can even be argued that Castro, taking advantage of the convergence of various international situations, pushed the Russians into the relationship faster and to a greater degree than they desired. If nothing else, the Kremlin long shared the Cuban Communists' v
iew that Fidel Castro was an unreliable customer, ideologically and practically. By the end of 1959, however, Castro had the Russians pretty much where he wanted them—as an antidote to the Americans.
The Cuban revolutionary government was recognized by the Soviet Union on January 10, 1959, three days after the United States did so, but this was basically meaningless because Batista had broken diplomatic relations with Moscow in 1952, and neither side proposed to restore them at that stage. Fidel had never been an ardent and uncritical admirer of the Soviet Union like Raúl, Nuñez Jiménez, and Che Guevara (until he soured on the Russians), and relations with Moscow were not a priority. Nevertheless, in the course of a television interview on February 19, he said Cuba was prepared to sell sugar to the Soviet Union, not a startling idea considering that the Russians were traditional buyers anyway. During 1959 Moscow contracted to buy 500,000 tons of sugar, roughly the volume purchased in 1955; China bought 50,000 tons. Together, this was less than 10 percent of the Cuban harvest.
A Soviet labor-union delegation had been invited to attend May Day celebrations in Havana, but visas were not issued in time. Three Soviet trade unionists did appear, however, in November, though the CIA station in Havana was much more interested in the visit in May and again in October of one Vadim Vadimovitch Listov, who was reported to be a high-ranking Soviet intelligence operative. At the same time, the Americans learned that four top Cuban pilots had gone secretly to Czechoslovakia to prepare a MiG jet training program; their leader was Captain Victor Pina Cardoso, a wartime Royal Air Force flier.
Officially, Moscow was not encouraging a close relationship with the Castro regime during 1959, possibly not to interfere with the "Spirit of Camp David" resulting from Premier Nikita Khrushchev's visit to President Eisenhower in September. Deputy Premier Anastas I. Mikoyan, a powerful Politburo member, had gone to New York and Mexico to open Soviet trade fairs, but nothing was suggested about hopping over to Havana to meet Castro. A more subtle method to make contact was devised instead. On October 16, ten days before he disappeared with his plane, Camilo Cienfuegos told Nuñez Jiménez that he had had a long conversation at a Havana hotel with Aleksandr Alexeiev, a correspondent for TASS, the Soviet news agency, who had come to Cuba after waiting eight months for a visa and would like to meet Castro. It is not known how Alexeiev was able to meet Cienfuegos, the army commander.
Nuñez Jiménez passed the word on to Castro, who informed Alexeiev that he would receive him for a "friendly" conversation at the prime minister's office on the top floor of the INRA building. Wearing a black suit and a gray necktie, the Soviet correspondent was brought from his hotel by two bearded Rebel Army soldiers. Finding Castro and Nuñez Jiménez in olive-green fatigues, Alexeiev greeted Castro and handed him a package wrapped in a Moscow newspaper: it contained a bottle of vodka, several cans of black caviar, and an album of photographs of Moscow. Opening the conversation, the Russian told Castro of the "great admiration" the Soviet people had for him and the Cuban revolution. The Soviet government and the Communist party, he said, held in great esteem his work for Cuba's social progress. Castro responded pleasantly that his revolutionary regime would be disposed to enter into trade relations with the Soviet Union at the proper time.
Nuñez Jiménez mentioned having met Mikoyan at the Soviet trade fair in New York in July, and a conversation developed about such an exhibit being brought to Havana, too. Castro then said that it would produce a "great impact" if Mikoyan came to Cuba to open the fair. At one point, Alexeiev noticed a silver medallion around Castro's neck, and the prime minister told him, "Don't worry, it's the image of a Christian saint that a little girl in Santiago sent me when I was in the Sierra Maestra." Then Fidel said, "So long as you've brought the caviar and the vodka, let's taste it." Conchita Fernández brought crackers, and the three men leaned back to enjoy the feast. Turning to Nuñez Jiménez, Fidel remarked, "What good vodka, what good caviar! Nuñez, I think it's worth establishing trade relations with the Soviet Union? What do you think?"
"Very well, Fidel," Alexeiev said, "we can now count on reestablishing economic relations, but what about the most important one, the diplomatic relations?" Castro replied, "Ah! . . . I can see why you came dressed so formally. . . . But it's better that we go on talking. We'll have to do it this way for the moment because we need time to create the [proper] conditions. Do you remember an article by Lenin in which he was saying that to apply a new policy or to introduce new ideas it is necessary to persuade the masses, make them participate in these decisions? We shall do that. . . . The idea of bringing the trade fair is excellent. . . . It's an opportunity to show the Cuban people the progress of the Soviet Union. Until the present, everything said about the Soviet Union is negative, and we shall see to it that this type of information does not continue. The fair and a visit by Mikoyan could be a successful beginning, don't you think? We've already started with caviar and vodka." The three men clinked glasses, and Castro said: "The fundamental thing now is not diplomatic relations. The most important thing is that Cubans and Russians are already friends. "
Within three months, Mikoyan was in Havana to launch the immensely far-reaching relationship with Cuba. Aleksandr Alexeiev would become the second Soviet ambassador to Cuba. But five successive Soviet rulers—from Khrushchev to Gorbachev—would also learn in the ensuing quarter-century the massive frustrations of dealing with Fidel Castro as an ally.
CHAPTER
3
Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev, two of the greatest political actors of our time, warmly embraced in a Harlem hotel in New York on September 20, 1960, sealing an alliance that two years later would push the world to the brink of a nuclear war. The sixty-six-year-old Soviet Communist party chairman's visit to the thirty-four-year-old Cuban prime minister, whom he dubbed a "heroic man," was his first public appearance after arriving to attend the United Nations General Assembly, thus creating the impression that Cuba was Russia's number one foreign-policy priority. So delighted was Castro with this attention that later that week he was the first delegate to leap to his feet to applaud Khrushchev's address to the General Assembly fervently. The Castro-Khrushchev New York act was magnificent political theater, leaving no doubt that Cuba had exchanged the American influence sphere for that of the Soviets, with all its attendant political implications in the Western Hemisphere and in East-West relations.
The immediate backdrop for the cordiality between Khrushchev and Castro was the catastrophic deterioration in Cuba's relations with the United States; the two nations, separated by ninety miles of blue Caribbean water, were now on an accelerating and unavoidable collision course. During the summer, Castro had nationalized $850 million worth of United States property on the island, from sugar mills and cattle ranches to oil refineries and utility companies, while the Eisenhower administration deprived the Cubans of their vital quota in the high-premium American sugar market. Moreover, the United States had taken two secret parallel decisions: to train and equip a Cuban exile force to invade Cuba, and to have the American Mafia assassinate Fidel Castro on the CIA's behalf.
At the same time, the general international situation had changed radically during 1960, making Cuba and its Fidelista revolution much more attractive and interesting to the Soviet Union. Because Khrushchev and Castro were calculated-risk gamblers, they joined forces to exploit the new state of affairs, though it must be assumed that, as a matter of principle, they had a healthy distrust of each other. From the Kremlin's viewpoint, the previous September's "Spirit of Camp David" was replaced by ugly tensions, beginning in May when the Soviets shot down a CIA U-2 spy plane over their territory, and the Khrushchev-Eisenhower summit meeting was canceled. Simultaneously, the long-simmering ideological feud between Moscow and Peking had finally boiled over in public view, and the two great Communist nations became rivals for the affections and allegiance of the emerging Third World. In this suddenly changed context, Cuba acquired a desirability for the Russians it had theretofore lacked (up till that time, t
he Soviets had diplomatic relations in Latin America only with Mexico, Argentina, and Uruguay; the region was one of comparatively minor interest to them. Khrushchev was not about to let China become the champion of the Cuban revolution. The Soviets must have been aware of the attraction China had initially had for many young Cuban revolutionaries, seeing parallels between their "peasant" revolutions, and even for ranking PSP members, such as the party's secretary general, Blás Roca, who was cordially received by Mao Zedong as late as April 1960. It was from Peking that Roca went to Moscow to meet Khrushchev for the first time (up to that moment, no senior Cuban leader had appeared in Moscow).
The Chinese were courting the Cubans while deliberately ignoring Khrushchev. For example, the official Chinese news agency, Hsin Hua, covered Khrushchev's two-hour General Assembly speech in only one paragraph in its daily world report. At that juncture, however, Castro obviously had already made the logical observation that the Soviets had the means to assist him greatly in his revolutionary endeavors, which impoverished China did not—although for the next two years he strove to navigate between the Communist giants, even coming up with the astonishing notion that he could mediate in that vast Marxist-Leninist dispute. Castro and his principal advisers acknowledge privately that the seriousness of the Sino-Soviet split in 1960 had to be among the overriding elements in Khrushchev's decision to go all-out for Cuba, going far beyond the economic accord Mikoyan had signed in Havana earlier that year, and following the caviar-and-vodka session between Castro and Alexeiev. Observing the rising hostility between Cuba and the United States, Khrushchev also reached the conclusion that Cuba was a priceless strategic asset for the Soviets in those days of relatively limited nuclear arms range and technology. After the U-2 incident with its strategic overtones, Castro's island offered too much potential military opportunity for the Soviet chairman—with his penchant toward adventurism—to resist the temptation of a full commitment. For Khrushchev, in effect, this was the moment of "the buying of Cuba," as a senior Cuban official commented privately and with certain bitterness not long ago, and the chairman presumably knew what he was doing. It is less clear, on the other hand, if Castro fully understood the geopolitical process upon which he was embarking in his bear hugs with Khrushchev in New York. Yet, it was he who pushed for the marriage, oblivious of the potential consequences.
