Foreign Relations, 1977–1980, Volume XXIII, Mexico, Cuba, and the Caribbean

100. Telegram From the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba to the Department of State¹

Havana, April 29, 1980, 2246Z

4083. Eyes Only for Assistant Secretary Bowdler. Subject: Cuban Refugee Flow to US.

1. C—Entire text.

2. I have left message with Padron’s aide that I need to talk to him on urgent basis regarding movement of people to US. Aide promised to get in touch with Padron—who is directing operation at Mariel—and have him call me this evening if at all possible. I hope therefore to see him late tonight (April 29) or sometime tomorrow.²

3. Against my expectations, some receptivity may be developing on Cuban side. Their own immigration facilities and procedures have been swamped. Mariel resembles a madhouse. Several Cuban immigration officials I saw at airport Sunday looked as though they had not slept in days. Moreover, Mariel has become a national distraction, with one large part of population now concentrating on ways to get there and get out, and a second part of the population spending a good deal of time and energy excoriating the first. Castro has certainly worked up their revolutionary fervor, harnessed their passion, etc., but sooner or later, they have to go back to work. There are, then, good reasons for GOC to wish to move to more orderly defined procedure. Question is whether they are thinking logically and dispassionately enough (#) to (#) those interests.³ Leadership has behaved for past month as though it had gone slightly mad.⁴ Conversation with Padron my well provide some clues as to whether their frenzy is abating.

Smith

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, North/South, Pastor, Country, Box 15, Cuba, 5/80. Confidential; Immediate; Nodis.
2. In telegram 4150 from Havana, April 30, Smith reported on his meeting with Padron. “Padron expressed great concern over deterioration of our bilateral relations. Mariel might appear to U.S. as irrational act ‘and perhaps it was,’ he acknowledged.” (Ibid.)
3. As in the original; presumably a transmission problem.
4. In his memoirs, Smith surmised that the death of Celia Sanchez, Castro’s secretary and purported mistress, may have been the reason behind the Cuban leader’s instability. (Smith, The Closest of Enemies, p. 206)