271. Telephone Conversation Between President Johnson and the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Mann)1
[Omitted here is discussion of Brazil, Mexico, and other Latin American countries.]
President: What are our danger spots?
Mann: Well, thatʼs the—
President: Chile election?
Mann: Thatʼs the biggest one, I would say, with the fact of the Communist element in it.
President: And the Dominican—
Mann: The overflights over Cuba.
President: What in the world can we do to minimize that? We canʼt go around them. We canʼt circle the island. We got to go over it. And—
Mann: I think weʼll get, Iʼm hoping weʼll get some good resolutions, which would be very helpful on the domestic front, and also of real value to us.
President: Is trade going up much between the British and the Cubans?
Mann: Well, it has in terms of British exports to Cuba, and French exports.
President: They told me when they were here that theyʼd been 55 million, theyʼd cut them to five, but theyʼd be up on account of the buses. Now what, how much are they up to?
Mann: Well, what really happened, I donʼt have the figures in my head, but I know itʼs up quite a bit, Mr. President, because theyʼve been buying all this sugar, and theyʼve got these, Cubaʼs got the convertible currencies to buy anything they want. I think itʼs about two hundred million dollars a year that Castro made last year, and we expect him to make about the same this year as a result of the increased price of sugar. Now sugar prices are dropping, this is a very temporary phenomenon, sugar prices are dropping and heʼs just, heʼs not going to have the money to buy this kind of stuff much longer. So I donʼt think [Page 659] that the prognosis, the medium and long term prognosis, is bad. Itʼs good.
President: You getting any reports of the things inside Cuba? Whatʼs happening?
Mann: Well, not really anything new that—
President: Is there any dissatisfaction?
Mann: Yes, we figure about 25 percent of the people—the job holders, the office holders, especially the young people in the country who are better off than they ever were before—are totally in favor of Castro. We think he can count on about 25 to 30 percent of the people. We think there are about 25 to 30 percent of the people who are opposed to him, and the middle ground there, the 40 to 50 percent, are just sort of apathetic. And thatʼs the way itʼs been for the last year or so, and there isnʼt much change in that, because his hard core of support is built around the people who hold jobs.
President: Would you say that our economic isolation policy has been a complete failure?
Mann: No, sir. I think itʼs been largely successful. I—
President: How? When the French and British are all trading with him?
Mann: Well, heʼs had these dollars and theyʼve sold him some things, and thatʼs hurt us. But on the, if—The alternative would be to let the bars down and let them extend credits and that sort of thing. And weʼve been very successful in keeping this limited to a number of isolated transactions. And this is a hell of lot better than taking him into our bosom.
President: How are we going to get rid of him?
Mann: Itʼs going to take some time.
President: Well—
Mann: I think itʼs going to have to come from—I really donʼt think that, unless somebody kills Castro, or he dies, or the army is split in the very top command where they turn on him, the army especially, that the people themselves can get rid of him. As long as that army is loyal to him, heʼs going to be there until he dies. And when he dies, nobody knows whatʼs going to happen, because heʼs got the same power to mesmerize people that Hitler had, and we doubt that anybody else has got, can project this same kind of image. The only other way to knock him off would be to go in there with force from the outside, and this could happen, either as a result of our reactions to his shooting at our planes that are doing this photographic stuff, or as a result of collective action which weʼre working on in this Venezuelan thing, whereby he tries again what he did in Venezuela, and if at that time you decide you want authority, the legal basis to go in, and you [Page 660] want to go in, I think we could get it. The main objective we hope to get out of this meeting is to say that subversion, communist subversion, is an aggression which is not an armed attack within the meaning of article six of the Rio Treaty, get them to accept that, so that if we have another act of subversion, weʼll have a good legal basis of going to the OAS and saying now you agreed that this was the law, and here are the facts, and this is what we ought to do. Because the biggest problem, as you know, that we had in the Bay of Pigs, was this doubt on the part of the lawyers and others that we had any right in international law to do anything, and we hope to clear that up considerably.
President: So that for the subversion by importing arms to other countries to be considered aggression, that would justify our moving.
Mann: Thatʼs what we—If he does it again. But we would have to go to the OAS and prove the facts. They didnʼt want to give us a blank check.
President: Well, youʼve got a statement there,2 say I ought to say at a press conference that I donʼt intend to invade Cuba, just as Kennedy didnʼt.
Mann: Well, sir, if I were you, I wouldnʼt make a statement like that, because who can tell whatʼs going to happen tomorrow? Suppose he shoots tomorrow and—
President: Well they say Khrushchev is saying that he hadnʼt seen us repeat Kennedyʼs pledge and we ought to do it.
Mann: Well, I would send, I wouldnʼt make a public statement, Iʼd have the Secretary of State say that if he behaves himself, doesnʼt commit any aggressive acts against other Republics, and doesnʼt shoot at any of our planes, or doesnʼt give us cause to do anything, that everythingʼs going to be all right in terms of war and peace.
President: You tell, in the morning you call Mac Bundy, heʼs not here, but you call him, and tell him I was talking to you last night, and youʼd like to know what heʼd propose to say in that statement and then you tell him why you donʼt think it ought to be done.3
Mann: All right.
[Omitted here is discussion of Uruguay, Argentina, and Venezuela.]
- Source: Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of telephone conversation between President Johnson and Thomas Mann, Tape 64.31, Side B, PNO 5. Secret. This transcript was prepared in the Office of the Historian specifically for this volume. The full transcript of this conversation is printed in Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, vol. XXXI, Document 16.↩
- The President was evidently referring to a June 2 memorandum from Bundy to him that advocated that a “no invasion” statement be made at a press conference. Bundy suggested that the Soviets “might find it easier to keep Castro under control if you were to reaffirm our intent not to launch an invasion of Cuba unless the Cubans forced it on us.” Bundy included the text of a proposed statement. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Memos to the President, McGeorge Bundy, Vol. 5, 1964–1965)↩
- See Document 272.↩