Office of the Historian

308. Memorandum of Conversation0

Washington, February 27, 1962.

SUBJECT

  • Cuban Revolutionary Council Spokesmen Stress Need for Military Action to Eliminate Castro Regime

PARTICIPATION

  • Jose Miro Cardona, Chairman, Cuban Revolutionary Council
  • Manuel Antonio de Varona, Cuban Revolutionary Council
  • Arturo Morales Carrion, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
  • Robert A. Hurwitch, Deputy Director, Office of Caribbean and Mexican Affairs

During the course of two interviews, first with Mr. Hurwitch and later with both Mr. Morales and Mr. Hurwitch, Messrs. Miro and Varona stressed the need for military action as the only way to get rid of Castro and the threat of communism to the hemisphere. They said that now that the Meeting of Foreign Ministers was over, Cuban exiles were insistently raising the question as to what came next. According to Miro and Varona , neither the deteriorating economic situation, nor sabotage, nor commando raids, nor propaganda could succeed in overthrowing the Castro regime, and therefore the only possible solution was military, involving either U.S. forces, or U.S. plus Cuban forces, or Cuban forces supported by the U.S., or Cuban plus Latin American forces, or some combination of the above. They said that the exile community was becoming increasingly impatient over the need for action, and that if they could not get an encouraging reply from us, they would probably have to resign from the Council. They could not go on any longer promising and deluding the exiles, they said, unless they had some encouragement that there was some plan underway to help them along military lines.

Mr. Morales made the following points:

(1)
Action of the kind requested might bring on Soviet retaliation, either in Cuba or elsewhere in the world. Miro and Varona perhaps had not been giving sufficient attention to this serious Cold War aspect of the problem.
(2)
The results of Punta del Este, and the change which it revealed in the attitudes of Latin American governments toward the problem of Cuba since the 7th Meeting of Foreign Ministers in San Jose, Costa Rica, were reasons for moderate optimism. Several Latin American countries [Page 764] are very disturbed about the threat Castro poses for their survival. In time they may be willing to take stronger steps. Punta del Este was a way station, not the end of the line.
(3)
At the first Punta del Este meeting in August 1961 the Cubans were accepted and even popular to a degree. At the second meeting they were completely ostracized.
(4)
There was considerable respect for Miro at Punta del Este.
(5)
A look at the internal situation in Cuba indicates that things are not going well there. Economic failures and the ascension of Communists to key posts have probably met with the disapproval of the Cuban people.
(6)
The recent debate in the UN reveals that the Cuban regime is almost hysterical at the way things are going.
(7)
If the Castro regime were to disappear tomorrow, the Communist threat in Latin America would still exist.
(8)
The Council must continue working on hemispheric public opinion. They should stress the point that Castro is a star being eclipsed by the Communists.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 737.00/2-2762. Secret. Drafted by G.H. Summ (ARA/CMA) on March 13.↩