837.00/2844½
Memorandum of Conference by the Secretary of State With the Press on October 2, 1930
A correspondent said that press dispatches from Havana report that President Machado contemplates asking Congress to suspend constitutional guarantees until after the forthcoming elections. The correspondent enquired whether this Government has any attitude or policy on that. The Secretary said that the Department has a policy toward Cuban affairs, and that he would give the correspondents the background.
The correspondents could state authoritatively that the Department is carefully watching the situation in Cuba. The Secretary has gained the impression that some of the correspondents had the idea that perhaps we were not watching. We have no idea of minimizing any situation which may exist but are carefully watching it.
To be used merely as background and not to be attributed to the Secretary, the Department or any official.
The Secretary then gave the correspondents the following information for their guidance. One should always remember the official and regular policy of this Government. It was stated nearly thirty years ago interpretative of our duty to Cuba under the Platt Amendment. A great many people seem to think that the Platt Amendment gives us a protectorate over the internal affairs of Cuba and that we are to go in there any time the Cubans seem to be running their government in a little different way from what the Secretary of State or the President of the United States think they should run it. [Page 663] That view is entirely different from the attitude of this Government as it was officially stated at the time the Platt Amendment was made. At that time the Secretary of War, Mr. Elihu Root, sent a cable to General Wood then the Governor General of Cuba containing the following statement:
“You are authorized to state officially that in the view of the President the intervention described in the third clause of the Platt Amendment is not synonymous with intermeddling or interference with the affairs of the Cuban Government, but the formal action of the Government of the United States, based upon just and substantial grounds, for the preservation of Cuban independence, and the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and adequate for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris.”
The statement was made because at that time there was a good deal of fear in Cuba as to the intent of the Platt Amendment and doubt as to whether we might impose our views on their internal affairs much more freely than was intended by the amendment.
The Secretary called the attention of the correspondents, by way of background, to the fact we have never intervened in Cuba except once in 1909 [1906]9a when there was no government there. The government that had been in power had resigned and armed forces of rebels were all through the country. Another time we made a pretty strong threat, and that was during the war and was made as a war measure. There was danger the crops of Cuba, on which we were depending, might be destroyed, but that was wholly a war measure. That is the background of the policy under which this Government will act; and under that background we are watching the situation very carefully, and we will guide our conduct accordingly.
A correspondent said that he understood the Secretary to mean by intervention the actual sending of armed forces into Cuba, that he would not consider the sending of electoral observers as we had in 1921 as intervention.9b The Secretary said when we did so in 1921, we did it on the invitation of the Cuban Government. General Crowder went to Cuba in 1919 on their invitation and drew up the electoral law and in the elections of 1920 we had not more than a half dozen observers throughout the island.10 They had no authority, but merely advised us. A correspondent said he had been wondering whether the State Department had made any suggestions to the Machado Government toward the liberalization of its regime. The Secretary said he would rather not say anything about that. We have an Ambassador in Havana, who has regular relations with the [Page 664] Cuban Government, the relations which an Ambassador should have, and it would not be proper to say publicly what he has or has not said. We have made no formal suggestions of any sort. There is no situation yet which, in our opinion, would lead to that. The correspondent said the whole matter seemed to him to turn on the question of whether in the event of an outbreak American forces would be landed to maintain the present regime. The Secretary said the correspondents could say that has never been done in the past. American forces have never landed in Cuba when there was any regime to maintain. The only times we have gone into Cuba was when there was no government. The Secretary reiterated he was speaking merely for the background of the correspondents and was not making any statements. The reason he did not want to make any statements was that he did not want to have any inadvertent word given now regarding action of this Government in the future. The Secretary was merely trying to give the correspondents precedents which could be followed whenever we have to take up the case. The correspondent explained to the Secretary that the reason he and his colleagues were interested in the subject was because the question came up repeatedly during the Secretary’s absence. It came up through members of the Senate as to what the policy of the United States would be in case of a revolution in Cuba. Undersecretary Cotton did not make any commitments at all, but said our relations with Cuba, obviously, through the Platt Amendment were different from our relations with Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. The Secretary said he also had made the same statement. All the Secretary wished to do was to give the correspondents information as to what has been done and the precedents under which we will have to act if action should become necessary, just in the same sense that no court ever decides a case until it has the actual case before it, so no government would ever want to say what it will do until the question comes up. As a matter of precedents the Secretary said emphatically we have never intervened in Cuba to maintain an existing government. The Platt Amendment is for the purpose of maintaining the independence of Cuba and not the maintaining of any particular government. The policy of the Administration is to carry out the policy laid down in the beginning and carry out that policy in the light of such situations as shall come up, but which we cannot foresee.
A correspondent enquired whether his understanding was correct that it is not the policy of the United States to intervene in behalf of any particular regime or party, but it might be the policy of the United States to intervene to restore order. The Secretary said the language of the Platt Amendment is this: “the Government of [Page 665] Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence and the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States.” The Secretary said that that is quite distinct from supporting any particular Government.
The Secretary declined to comment concerning this Government’s attitude toward the suspension of the constitutional guarantees. End of section for background and guidance only, not to be attributed to the Secretary, the Department, or Government officials.
The Secretary said the correspondents could say that it was pointed out at the State Department that there was never an intervention in Cuba to support a Government. The Secretary suggested that the correspondents be very careful about this. They asked him whether they might say they had learned from the Department that no intervention had ever taken place. The Secretary said there was always the possibility in the quotation of a single thing without the guarding circumstances around it, that it might be used by some factions for their encouragement. It is possible that a junta might take that as encouragement to revolt. There is that danger in intimation that we would not interfere. Therefore the Secretary asked the correspondents to say it was pointed out at the State Department that while it is true there was never an intervention in Cuba to support a government, every case in the future will be judged on its merits and a situation might exist which would distinguish it from the preceding one. A correspondent enquired whether it would not help to clarify if the correspondents were to bring in the quotation which the Secretary had read of Mr. Root’s telegram to Governor General Wood. The Secretary said he was perfectly willing the correspondents should use that which has been the national policy of this government for twenty-seven years. It is our policy as applied to questions which come up before us, about which we cannot prophesy now.
- See Foreign Relations, 1906, pt. i, pp. 454 ff.↩
- See Ibid., 1921, vol. i, pp. 670 ff.↩
- See Ibid., 1919, vol. ii, pp. 1 ff., and Ibid., 1920, vol. ii, pp. 1 ff.↩