837.00/4033
The Ambassador in Mexico (Daniels) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 15.]
Dear Mr. Secretary: It was good to hear your voice over the telephone to-day. Sometimes I get lonesome for the voice of a friend in our country. It cheered me greatly when you said “I would rather walk from here to the South Pole than to have to intervene”.
In our conversation this morning you said “All reports are very persistent that there are more or less communistic [influences] in there behind a certain group that is trying to keep anything from being done, and that may be the chief trouble we have down there”. My information here is that the report of communistic influence in Cuba is very much exaggerated. In our own country and elsewhere people attribute to Communists all the agencies that work evil. I think it is so in Cuba, and if I were you I would accept with many grains of [Page 415] allowance the attempt to saddle on the comparatively few Communists all that goes awry. Some years [ago] Lord Lochiel, a Cameron of Scotland, was visiting in North Carolina. “The trouble in Scotland” he said “is due to Communists and Bolsheviks”. I expressed surprise that there were any in Scotland, and said “Lord, will you please define a Bolshevist”. He made several attempts, and each time said “No, that will not do—that is not correct” and then in his inability to give a definition satisfactory to himself, said, “Oh, well, a Bolshevist is anybody you don’t like”. I am inclined to think that it is not Communists who are Making, the most trouble in Cuba, but they are made to bear sins of other groups.
Practically all the civil officials who had part in helping Machado in his reign of ruin have fled the country or been killed. Up to a few days ago most of the army officers, military men, who had more to do with the reign of terror in Cuba than the civilians were still hold[ing] high rank in the army. The Cubans who drove out the civilians whose rule was evil, feel that their cause will not be safe as long as their army is officered by men who were largely responsible for the downfall of the President who was then Commander-in-chief and carried out the bloody policy. Can you blame the men who risked all for a change to wish to be rid of reactionary military leaders as they ousted civilian leaders? You put your hand on the sore spot when you said in your telephone talk “The whole thing revolves around the army”. Does it not—or may it not revolve—around army officers, who were in sympathy with Machado, but who still hold positions which them dangerous. Of course we are alarmed get out of control of their officers, but may there not be times, as in Russia, when the high-up officers are so utterly out of sympathy with the good objects of a revolution that their continuance endangers reforms?
I do not know enough about Cuba to assert that such is the case there, but I do know that Machado and his associates, civil and military, were very close to high financiers in Cuba and the United States, and had no sympathy for reforms that would give bread to the hungry Cubans whose needs were not cared for by those in power. Army officers under a Machado are often the agents of repression and have no heart-beat for the oppressed and distressed. May not the rich and powerful in Cuba, and their allies in the United States, and imperialistic army officers, be behind the attempt to hide behind exaggerating the lawlessness of Communists? I do not know, but I submit the question for your consideration.
Faithfully yours,