80. Notes Prepared by William Attwood1
Notes on Conversation With President Fidel Castro on October 3, 1979
I arrived in Havana Oct. 1 and was invited to Castro’s office in the Council of Ministers’ Palace at 6 p.m. Oct. 3; also present were his aide, Alfredo Ramirez, and a woman interpreter named Juanita. This was our first meeting since February, 1977 and our fourth since 1959. Following are the highlights of our talk, which lasted an hour and a half:
1. He was pleased that Carter in his speech two nights before2 finally admitted that the Soviet troops had been here a long time but he regretted that the President sounded so “arrogant.”
2. He wondered, ruefully, why our political leaders always sound “bellicose and aggressive” when talking about Cuba—even while being relatively pleasant to the Russians. I suggested that Carter’s speech was directed to the Russians and to the Senate hawks and asked him how it could have been phrased differently. Castro acknowledged that under the circumstances it was perhaps understandable—“You are always having to worry about elections in America”—but that all the saber-rattling about the Caribbean was greatly overdone. I also inferred that he resented Carter’s earlier reference to him as a puppet.
3. The “disclosure” about the brigade during the Non-Aligned Conference was, he said, “too much of a coincidence.” He “knows” Brzezinski headed a team in Washington whose mission was to sabotage this Conference. Senator Church, he said, was called in and deliberately given this misleading information about the “brigade.” But the effort failed and only made the U.S. look foolish in the eyes of the world.
4. He said the so-called crisis was false and a “comedy” because the same number of troops with the same training functions have been [Page 172] there since 1962. President Kennedy even okayed their presence after the October missile crisis. And there were two “lies” in the U.S. disclosure. First, that the Soviet unit was a new one; and second, that its mission had changed from training to combat.
5. Castro feels grateful to the Russians for standing firm on this issue. They could have compromised—for example, by removing some of the troops—to help get SALT ratified. But they backed him up because they knew he was right.
6. Carter, he said, was “badly advised” on this whole matter, indicating by gesture and expression that he was prepared to exonerate him. In Castro’s mind, Brzezinski is clearly the villain. Anyway, he considers the episode closed and won’t talk about it any more unless in reply to questions.
7. He plans to go to the U.N. later this month, or early in November, but he asked me not to mention it yet.3 He will go as a spokesman for the Non Aligned movement, not to raise problems like this mini-crisis. He asked me what he should say in his speech. I suggested a lofty theme, like cooperation for development transcending ideology as we look ahead to the 21st Century.
8. Returning to the brigade issue, I suggested that Washington’s real concern was not about 2,000 Soviet troops but rather whether a new attempt at deception was involved. This was important in the SALT context. After all, I said, the Russians did lie to us about the missiles in 1962. Castro agreed they “handled that badly” by lying; he, Castro, never would have denied their presence in Cuba.
9. He would be willing to meet Carter on this projected visit to the U.N. if Carter wants to see him, but it is not up to him, Castro, to request such a meeting.
10. He sees no reason why the process of normalizing relations, which has been stalled for some time, cannot go forward now that this crisis is past; in fact, it might even give it fresh impetus. But lifting the trade embargo—which he still considers an act of war—remains a precondition for meaningful negotiations. This is important mainly for symbolic reasons, he said, since lifting it would actually help U.S. firms more than Cuba. He wondered aloud why we always treat Cuba different from other “socialist” countries. He believes Brzezinski and others would prefer that Cuba be an outright satellite of the Soviet Union because this would make it easier to discredit him; but it simply isn’t true. Cuba depends on the U.S.S.R. for help but it doesn’t take orders.
[Page 173]11. I asked him why he refers to us so often as imperialists: where and when have we acted as imperialists lately? I reminded him that we just lowered our flag in Panama and that we have assisted the revolutionary side in Nicaragua. Castro smiled and pulled on his beard and finally said he couldn’t think of any recent imperialistic action by the U.S., off hand, though our incessant efforts to isolate and discredit Cuba in Latin America certainly was a form of imperialism. Then he mentioned that imperialism also took economic forms like capitalistic investment in the Third World. I pointed out that our mutual friend, Sekou Toure of Guinea, seemed to welcome U.S. private capital to help develop and sell his bauxite reserves.
12. About Panama and Nicaragua, he said he had been helpful to us by telling Torrijos to be patient when the Senate was stalling on the Canal Treaty. Also, he said, Cuba showed restraint in Nicaragua and did not go rushing in, as we probably expected. And he added that Cuba had nothing whatsoever to do with triggering the strictly internal uprising in Grenada. (Castro seemed to be trying to say he was not trying to meddle in the Caribbean.)
13. I asked him about Angola. He said that the death of Neto and continued bombing raids by South Africa compels him to keep troops and technicians there;4 but if Namibia became independent, the situation would be more stable and he might be able to start phasing them out.
14. Going back to U.S.-Cuban relations, we agreed that it was unfortunate they were always strained. He said that since he has more influence with the non-aligned nations than do the Soviets, it certainly doesn’t help us to make an enemy of him; but if we wanted him as an enemy then he is prepared to oblige. But it is up to us: “The real problem between us is a moral one. What we need is a climate of peace.”
15. Although Castro looked very weary, he wound up our meeting talking amiably and with considerable animation about solar and wind energy, Pol Pot, U.S. politics, the uses of kenaf, the lunacy of nuclear war, what kind of trees grow in Connecticut and the health and well-being of my family, whom he met two years ago. I left him feeling, as usual, that treating a man with such personal and political charisma as a mortal enemy for 20 years has not been to our advantage.5
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, North/South, Pastor, Country, Box 14, Cuba, 10/1–3/79. No classification marking. Attwood, former Ambassador to Guinea and Kenya, was a leading advocate for a rapprochement in U.S.-Cuban relations.↩
- The President addressed the nation on October 1 about the Soviet military presence in Cuba. During his speech, President Carter stated that “the brigade issue is certainly no reason for a return to the cold war. A confrontation might be emotionally satisfying for a few days or weeks for some people, but it would be destructive to the national interest and security of the United States.” Instead, Carter proposed increasing surveillance in Cuba, establishing a Caribbean joint task force, expanding military maneuvers in the Caribbean, assuring regional allies of U.S. support, and increasing economic assistance to the Caribbean. Carter concluded that “the greatest danger to all the nations of the world” was the threat of nuclear war, and called upon Congress to ratify SALT II. (Public Papers: Carter, 1977, Book II, pp. 1802–1806)↩
- Castro addressed the United Nations General Assembly on October 12. (Telegram 4346 from USUN, October 13; National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D790469-0236)↩
- Agostinho Neto died of cancer in Moscow on September 10.↩
- An account of an October 4 meeting between Smith and Castro, in which similar topics were discussed, is in telegram 9009 from Havana, October 5. (National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, P850029–2386)↩