Cold War History

Vol. 11, No. 3, August 2011, 317–339

The shadows of Cold War over Latin

America: the US reaction to Fidel
Castro’s nationalism, 1956 – 59
Vanni Pettinà
Spanish National Research Council, Human and Social Sciences
Centre, Madrid, Spain

Scholars have addressed the problem of the Dwight Eisenhower administration’s

opposition to Fidel Castro’s nationalist insurrection (1956–59) following two main
perspectives. Some authors have perceived it in terms of a response to the threat
that Castro’s radical programme posed to American economic interests in Cuba.
Other scholars have claimed that, in the 1950s, Washington did not have a clear
perception of the differences between progressive nationalism and communism.
This article offers a different explanation. It argues that the intersection between
the Cold War and the decolonisation process played a crucial role in changing
the US’s perception of Latin American nationalism. Specifically, the launch of the
Peaceful Coexistence strategy by the Soviet post-Stalinist leadership increased
Moscow’s ability to interact with nationalism of developing areas, pushing the
Republican administration into a defensive position in the Third World. During
the 1950s, this context strongly influenced Washington’s diplomatic strategy in the
Latin American and the Cuban scenarios, driving the Eisenhower Presidency to
adopt a hostile position toward nationalist governments or nationalist inspired
political movements such as Castro’s.

Introduction
In 1961, after the Cuban revolution had taken its definitive path toward socialism, the
Eisenhower administration decided to sever its diplomatic ties with Fidel Castro’s

Vanni Pettinà graduated in Political Sciences at University of Florence, Italy (2004). He received his MA in Latin
American Studies by the Universidad Complutense of Madrid and the Ortega y Gasset Research Center (Madrid,
2006). He is Doctor in Contemporary History from the Universidad Complutense of Madrid (IUOG) and the
Spanish National Research Council. His research focuses on the US-Cuban relations between 1933 and 1959.
Correspondence to: Vanni Pettinà, Center for Human and Social Sciences Studies (CCHS)-CSIC, Institute of
History, Madrid, Spain. Email: [email protected]; [email protected]

ISSN 1468-2745 print/ISSN 1743-7962 online

q 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14682741003686115
http://www.informaworld.com
318 V. Pettinà
government. Nonetheless, American diplomacy had been critical of Castro’s nationalist
movement almost since the summer of 1957. Existing literature has mainly tried
to tackle this problem using a local perspective. Some scholars have focused on the
issue represented by the US’s determination to defend its historical economic hegemony
in Cuba from Castro’s radical nationalism.1 Other authors have addressed the problem
in terms of the Eisenhower administration’s inability to differentiate between
communism and Castro’s nationalism.2 This paper will argue that the Eisenhower
administration’s reaction to Castro was the consequence of a broader process that, in the
early 1950s, negatively changed the Republican administration’s perception of
nationalism on a global scale. Particularly, it argues that the Soviet post-Stalinist
leadership was able to gain superiority when it came to interact with nationalist elites in
decolonised areas but also in developing countries, such as Latin American ones. This
condition drew the Republican government toward a policy of containment of the
radical nationalist phenomena in the periphery. The paper will try to demonstrate that
the American policy toward the Cuban insurrection was also part of this global strategy
aimed at containing the convergence between radical nationalism and communism in
the Third World.

From the ‘Break-Up of the Colonial Empires’ to the Cold War, the New Global
Powers versus Nationalism
The problem concerning the Eisenhower administration’s reaction to Latin American
nationalism, and hence to Castro’s Cuban brand, needs to be addressed from a global
perspective. The Republican Presidency perceived Latin American nationalist
movements as part of a broader political process that, in the early 1950s, was running
through all the decolonised and developing world. From the American perspective, the
critical point was represented by the interconnection between this new wave of
nationalism and the bipolar conflict scenario. For Washington, the convergence
between nationalism and the Soviet foreign policy in the developing world launched a
frightful threat towards its national security. In Iran in 1953, Indonesia in 1955 –57,
Guatemala in 1954 and in Cuba throughout 1957 –61, to take some examples, the
Eisenhower administration seemed to be unable, short of military intervention, to
avert the convergence between the local nationalist elites and the indigenous
communist parties. For American diplomacy, this scenario had represented a constant
source of concern since the end of the 1940s. Just a few years after the end of World
War II, in 1948, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had published an International
Estimate entitled The Break-up of the Colonial Empires and its Implications for U.S.
Security.3 In this document, the CIA identified the decolonisation process and the
Soviet ability to take advantage of it as the main future challenge to western hegemony.
More specifically, American intelligence analysts stressed the risk that recently
decolonised countries or nationalist movements, still struggling for independence,
could adopt a pro-Soviet orientation:
 Cold War History 319

The growth of nationalism in colonial areas, which has already succeeded in

breaking up a large part of the European colonial Systems and in creating a series of
new, nationalistic states in the Near and Far East, has major implications for US
security, particularly in terms of possible World conflict with the USSR. This shift of
the dependent areas from the orbit of the colonial powers not only weakens the
probable European allies of the US but deprives the US itself of assured access to vital
bases and raw materials in these areas in event of war. Should the recently liberated
and currently emergent states become oriented toward the USSR, US military and
economic security would be seriously threatened.4
The CIA also regarded the anti-colonialist movements as a vector capable of
transforming the bipolar conflict into what Odd Arne Westad has defined as the
‘global Cold War’:5

The colonial independence movement, therefore, is no longer purely a domestic

issue between the European colonial powers and their dependencies. It has been
injected into the larger arena of world politics and has become an element in the
broader problems of relations between Orient and Occident, between industrialised
and ‘underdeveloped’ nations, and between the Western Powers and the USRR.6
Finally, the CIA claimed that the injection of independence and nationalist
movements into the broader East –West conflict, in the end, could strongly benefit the
Soviet Union’s ‘expansionist strategy’. However, even if the CIA had warned that
decolonisation and nationalism could represent a real advantage for the Soviet Union,
in 1948 the path that Third World and developing nationalism was going to follow was
still uncertain. In fact, as underlined by Westad, the NSC51 had shown that at the
beginning of 1950 Washington still believed that the best way to avert ‘communist
infiltration’ of nationalist movements was to cooperate with them.7 Then, during the
1950s this perception started changing, as Moscow gained some advantage in
interacting with the developing world. The launch of Peaceful Coexistence during
Georgy Malenkov’s ‘collective leadership’ and its strengthening during the Nikita
Khrushchev years clearly represented a serious attempt to orient, by means of
economic and political cooperation, the developing nationalism toward the Soviet
Union.8
The reaction of both Democratic and Republican leaders in the US highlights how
seriously Washington worried about the new Soviet strategy. In 1953, for example, the
leader of the Democratic majority in the American Congress, William F. Knowland,
defined Peaceful Coexistence as the Soviet Union’s ‘Trojan Horse’ in the developing
world.9 Then, in 1955, during a gathering with Illinois manufacturers, John Foster
Dulles gave an interesting proof of the sense of inferiority that characterised the
American political leadership regarding the problem of the new Soviet Union strategy
in the developing world: ‘The Soviet rulers have an advantage in that they find it easy
to neglect the needs of their own people and have trained a large number of scientists
and technicians whom they can send abroad as a symbol of promises which are
alluring’.10 Again, in 1956 the democratic presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson,
called a ‘tragic irony that the United States, which has always stood for peace, freedom
320 V. Pettinà
and justice’, should have come to be regarded as an enemy of nationalist aspirations,
whereas the totalitarian Soviet Union should become identified with the struggles of
the oppressed and former colonial peoples.11 Washington, which since the time of the
Woodrow Wilson administration had played an important role in advancing the
decolonisation process, was now rapidly shifting toward a more conservative approach
to the issue.12 For Stevenson, the Soviet peaceful offensive was producing a powerful
and attractive call for nationalist elites, generating, at the same time, the impression
that Washington had forgotten its anti-colonialist credentials.
In this sense, there were many reasons that justified the growing American
uneasiness regarding its relations with anti-colonialist movements or Third World
nationalism. Firstly, as is well illustrated by John Lewis Gaddis, the need to preserve the
alliance with European countries, which were at the same time still colonial powers
and key partners in the struggle against the Soviet Union, represented an obstacle to
the establishment of a constructive relationship with anti-colonial movements and
decolonised countries.13 In 1956, during a news conference and using that easy
speaking tone that had made him so popular, Eisenhower summarised the complexity
of elements that were hampering the American diplomatic interaction process with
nationalism in one of the ‘hottest’ areas of the developing world, the Middle East. The
President emphasised the need to guarantee access for Western European countries to
natural resources in the Middle East, while, at the same time, supporting the legitimate
aspirations of the people, ‘economically, socially and politically’, to self-rule. But,
Eisenhower stated, ‘it becomes a very difficult thing to do because of the antagonism
and cross antagonism. They are not always running even in one direction. They seem
to cross here and there. It is a very difficult thing’.14 In this sense, a good example of
what Eisenhower had defined as ‘antagonism and cross antagonism’ was Egypt where,
during the 1950s, the Republican administration had to deal with the strongly
nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Facing his increasing requests for military and
political support, Washington had to balance its response by taking into account
British and French opposition.15 Similarly, in Algeria, the Eisenhower administration
had to modulate its response to the Algerian aspirations for independence, carefully
considering the French position.16
If the ‘European’ factor represented an American handicap, the Soviet Union could
count, on its side, on some other proactive advantages that were widening the gap
between Washington and Moscow when it came to interacting with the Third World.
When, during the 1950s, the inexorable process of imperial collapse gave life to an
increasing number of new nations in Asia and in Africa, the focus of the nationalist
elites rapidly switched from the issue of political independence toward the quest
for economic independence and, therefore, to the sources for achieving it.17 In this
context, industrialisation was considered the only practicable way to fix the gap
between the developing Third World and the developed one. It was around the issue of
economic modernisation that newly independent Asian and African countries met
with Latin American republics. These, even if generally freed from Spanish imperial
domination since the 1820s, had usually been unable to set up a balanced and
 Cold War History 321

equitable model of economic development. For Washington, the crucial point was
that, in terms of capacity to interpret the developing nations’ quest for modernisation,
the Soviets had some crucial advantages. First of all, it should be considered that until
Walt Whitman Rostow’s proposal for a non-communist road to modernisation,
Washington had no clear model to sell.18 During the Truman and the Eisenhower
administrations, the target of American propaganda had been the issue of democracy.
The main tools of the American effort to underscore the Stalinist totalitarian
barbarisms had been the Voice of America, a radio station transmitting worldwide,
and the United States Information Agency.19 This sort of propaganda had been useful
in Europe, where the ghosts of Nazis and Fascist totalitarian regimes were still fresh,
but it was not able to meet the needs of the developing world. In contrast, the Soviet
Union’s conversion from a mainly backward country, whose economy had been largely
based on agricultural production, into a leading industrial power able to launch
rockets and satellites was in itself a very powerful passport. As underlined by Eric
Hobsbawm, the main attraction of the Soviet model was the most gifted invention
achieved by its social scientists during the 1920s and 1930s: a scientific methodology
for economic modernisation.20 In 1955, two leading American Kremlinologists clearly
summarised the problem of the competition between West and East in terms of
industrialisation models:
The communist appeal in underdeveloped areas is still formidable. In particular, it
holds an attraction for those groups of the population who prefer drastic
industrialization ‘from above’ to the gradualist, evolutionary tradition of the West
. . . For these groups, it is the USSR and China, not the Western industrial countries,
which – to borrow a phrase from Marx – present to other underdeveloped areas an
image of their own future.21
In 1955, the CIA issued a special report on Soviet bloc economic activities that
alarmingly underlined the rapid expansion of its economic ties with Afghanistan,
India and Indonesia. ‘Stronger economic relations, the CIA added, “are fast developing
with Yugoslavia and Egypt”; . . . other Arab states, notably Syria and Lebanon, have
been object of the recent concerted trade activities’.22
The Soviet trade/aid programme consisted of loans at low interest, usually 2.5 per cent,
in return for the purchase of goods and service from bloc countries or for local exports.23
As frankly acknowledged by the Secretary of Defense, Charles E. Wilson, during a
NSC meeting in November 1955: ‘the United States seemed to have no equivalent to
match these Soviet techniques’.24 Indeed, between 1953 and 1956 Soviet trade agreements
with developing countries increased from 113 to 203.25 The value of Soviet trade with
Third World countries increased from $850 million in 1954 to $1.44 billion in 1956.26
Only a year later, during the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev could proudly
claim that the new decolonised countries did not need ‘to go begging to their former
oppressor for modern equipment; they can get it in the socialist countries, free of any
political and military obligations’.27
American intelligence estimated that the Soviet trade/aid policy in Third World was
also accompanied by a new political strategy. The CIA pointed out that the new
322 V. Pettinà
scenario shaped by peaceful coexistence would have made it easier for communist
parties to broaden their ‘popular support by attracting non-Communists into united
national fronts’.28 The Soviet approach towards Third World nationalism had a long
history and had gone through several stages. It was with Lenin, when the theoretical
debate switched from the production models to the means to achieve power, which the
Soviet position regarding nationalism had begun to change.29 Lenin considered the
colonised world as the West’s weak point, the place where capitalism’s contradictions
would suddenly explode and thereby decided to focus Soviet attention on these
areas.30 Arguing that communist parties were still too weak to lead the initiative, Lenin
proposed at the Second Comintern Congress (July 1920) the possibility of tactical
alliances with the anti-imperialist bourgeoisie. In 1922, during the Fourth Congress of
the Comintern, the ‘United Anti-Imperialist Front’ strategy was officially adopted as
the main tool of Soviet foreign policy in the colonised world.31 It plainly affirmed that
in the colonial World the main objective of communist parties was to support the anti-
imperial struggle and to cooperate with the progressive nationalist bourgeoisie.
During 1940, the Bulgarian communist Georgi Dimitrov improved the strategy,
shaping the new People’s Democracy concept. Dimitrov recovered Leninist positions,
stating that where communist parties were not ready to take power a sort of
compromise had to be found with the nationalist agrarian, industrialist or commercial
bourgeoisie.32 The People’s Democracy strategy envisioned a political environment
where communists and progressive nationalists could cooperate by focusing on shared
priorities such as land reform or state planned industrialisation. After World War II,
this model helped Moscow to smoothly start the process of sovietisation even in such
East European countries where the political majority was anti-communist.33 In
colonial areas, this tactic was basically carried on during the 1930s and interrupted
only briefly after World War II, when Soviet initiatives in some cases rested on military
activities, as in Korea. But, the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
(INR) was nevertheless convinced that by the end of the war in Korea, Moscow had
gone back to it.34

The shadows of the Cold War over Latin America

In Latin America, Washington felt that Moscow was using similar tools and a similar
strategy when it came to nationalism as those used in other developing areas of the
world. In the Western Hemisphere, the twentieth century saw the birth of a new
nationalist generation, which shared common aspirations with its Asian, Middle
Eastern or North African counterparts. Early twentieth century nationalist
movements, like the Argentinean Unión Cı́vica Radical, held the rich exporting
oligarchy responsible for using its economic power to monopolise the political system,
thereby avoiding political reforms. After 1929, the call for political change was
overshadowed by the urge for economic development. In this context, the focus on
state control over economic processes and the strong emphasis on industrialisation
became central to many new political parties or nationalist movements that flourished
 Cold War History 323

between the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s. Modernisation and
progress, in Latin America as in Asia or Africa, mostly meant industrialisation and
agrarian reforms. After World War II, this political trend was still very active in the
region. In Cuba the Partido Revolucionario Auténtico, in Bolivia the Movimiento
Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), in Perú the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria
Americana and, in Guatemala Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán’s government epitomised the
new Latin American nationalism.35
American intelligence traced this phenomenon, its analogies with other Third
World nationalist movements, as well as its potential ties to the ‘Soviet Union’s global
strategy’. In October 1958, a few months before Fidel Castro conquered the last Batista
stronghold in Cuba, the Central Intelligence Agency issued a report over 100 pages
long, which focused on the problem of nationalism and socialism in Latin America. It
is worth noting that the CIA did not use the word ‘socialism’ as a synonym for
‘Marxism’. Rather, the Agency defined socialism as an ideology of modernisation based
on a deep involvement of the state in the economic strategies of development.
Socialism embodied people’s aspirations for ‘industrialization and a higher standard
of living’. It entailed ‘economic planning and nationalization’ to effect his goal and
shared with developing nationalisms the common ambition of ‘man’s emancipation
and freedom from foreign political and economic influence’. In fact, the report
indicated that nationalist elites in Asia and the Middle East believed that socialism,
understood as a modernisation theory, offered ‘the means whereby the resources of a
country could be mobilized for rapid industrialization’. Most importantly, the
document emphasised that many of the elements, such as ‘underdevelopment,
ignorance and poverty’, that were contributing to the concurrent development of
nationalism and socialism in Asia and the Middle East were also present in Latin
America. The CIA also highlighted that, in the Western Hemisphere, the strong anti-
US sentiment was akin to anti-colonialism in Asia and the Middle East, ‘in which the
U.S. is blamed for Latin America’s general backwardness and lack of industrialization
in major areas’.36
From the CIA point of view, the problem was that the ‘socialist’ leaning of many
nationalist movements in Latin America offered Moscow an unmatched opportunity
to extend its influence in the region. US intelligence emphasised that communists were
actively trying to attract Latin American progressive nationalism toward the Eastern
bloc. Moscow’s strategy was focused on stressing the compatibility between Soviet
positions vis-à-vis world affairs or development issues and nationalist aspirations.
In particular, the CIA’s perception was that the Soviet Union was using two tools in its
effort to detach Latin American countries and nationalist elites from Washington: the
economic leverage and the ‘Democratic Front of National Liberation’ strategy.37
The first one referred to the economic offensive that Khrushchev had launched on the
continent at the beginning of 1956. In January, Nicolai Bulganin, Malenkov’s successor
as Prime Minister, formally offered economic assistance to Latin American countries.38
It is worth noting that the Soviet initiative contributed to the worsening of the already
poisoned relations between the US and many Latin American countries. Since the end
324 V. Pettinà
of World War II, Washington had faced increasing complaints by Latin American
leaders troubled by the decline of US aid to the continent after the relative plenty of the
Roosevelt years.39 After World War II, countries like Brazil, Cuba and Argentina were
going through a complicated stage of economic readjustment. One of the main problem
affecting Latin American economies was the lack of internal and external capital to
finance the consolidation of their industrialisation processes.40 Moreover, increasing
international competition in terms of primary production was adding even more
problems to the traditional commodities price instability. Indeed, in 1953, the end of
the Korean War provoked a fall in international prices of the main exporting
commodities, causing waves of inflation that undermined the fragile position of the
small Latin American middle class.41 In 1954, the CIA had warned that ‘decreasing
demand and lower prices for Latin American exports, especially in the US’, had aroused
the area’s interest in expanding its trade with the Soviet bloc.42
These observations notwithstanding, the increasing globalisation of the Cold War
had shifted American resources elsewhere, particularly to South Asia and the Middle
East. Under Harry Truman’s Four Point Program for technical assistance, only 2 per cent
of total US aid went to Latin America.43 The new Republican administration not only
followed a similar pattern, but accelerated it even further. Eisenhower considered that
after the end of the Korean War American foreign aid should be substantially reduced,
leaving room for private capital. As the new President saw it, in Latin America trade and
private capital were more appropriate than public aid for fostering development.44 In
1956, Adolf Berle, Assistant to the Secretary of State during the Truman administration,
denounced the aid policy in Latin America, underlining that during the Eisenhower
administration it had dramatically decreased to an astonishing 1 per cent of total aid
spent overseas.45 In this context, the only exception was Bolivia. In spite of its agrarian
reform and nationalisation programmes, Washington helped the Bolivian nationalist
revolution led by the MNR with a $30 million aid plan.46 Yet, in this case, the United
States’ objective to avoid nationalism merging with ‘socialism’ were clearly at the centre
of its approach. As pointed out by James Siekmeier, the Eisenhower administration used
the aid leverage to strengthen the equally nationalistic, but bitterly anti-communist,
MNR moderate wing.47
By the end of its first term, the Eisenhower administration was forced to review its
aid policy as it faced an increasing Soviet challenge in the Third World.48 The Latin
American position improved, even if still a minor aid recipient compared to South
Asia or the Middle East.49 An articulated aid plan aimed at supporting Latin American
development was largely incompatible with the administration’s conservative
approach to fiscal policies. And, indeed, it was not going to take shape until John
Fitzgerald Kennedy’s ‘Alliance for Progress’ initiative.50
The Soviet economic offensive was probably ineffective from a material point of
view, given the low quality of the material offered and to the small lending capacity of
Moscow.51 Still, it was able to hit a critical political point in the broader context of
intercontinental relations. The Soviets had challenged Washington’s ability to deal
with Latin America’s quest for modernisation. In 1953, John Cabot, Assistant to the
 Cold War History 325

Secretary of State for Latin America, had warned about the political consequences of
the failure to support economic and political reforms on the continent. Cabot, who
a year later resigned his post, warned that liberal elements on the continent were
rapidly shifting toward communist positions:

Social reform is coming in Latin America, and may come by evolution or revolution.
Reactionary elements, he [Cabot] said, do not want social reform, but are willing to
tie down the safety valve and wait for the boiler to burst. Liberal elements faced with
such opposition have become increasingly susceptible to communist influence.52
Thus, Cabot’s views explain the second point that the CIA had highlighted as a
cornerstone of Soviet strategy in Latin America, the ‘Democratic or United Front of
National Liberation’ policy of interclass alliance or infiltration of nationalist
movements. As Cabot had implied, Liberal elements in Latin American societies,
facing conservative opposition to reforms and American lack of interest in continental
progress, were becoming responsive to ‘communist influence’. If, as Joseph Gilbert
points out, during the 1930s and 1940s Roosevelt’s New Deal had represented the
model for continental modernisation, the nationalists were now increasingly turning
to the Soviet model of development.53 Regarding this problem, General C.P. Cabell’s
testimony before a Senate Committee investigating the means by which US diplomacy
had challenged the Cuban insurrection in the late 1950s is of particular interest. Cabell,
who had been Deputy Director of the CIA between 1953 and 1962 and Director of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff between 1951 and 1953, testified that in Latin America the CIA
had been constantly concerned about the communists’ growing capacity ‘to infiltrate
nationalist movements’ through the ‘National Liberation’ strategy:

The so called national liberation strategy seeks to offset Communist numerical and
political weakness through international organisational support and clandestine
techniques of infiltration and coordination. The program of Communism in Latin
America is designed to develop unity of action around popular issues such as
antipathy to dictatorship, inflation, a desire for greater industrialization,
nationalization of resources and wider and more stable markets.54
Cabell’s observations reflected remarks already made by US intelligence services in the
early 1950s. In fact, in 1952 the INR had noted that, after the 19th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (October 1952), the ‘Anti-imperialist United
Front’ or its other label, the ‘National Liberation Front’ had been officially adopted as
‘a device for Soviet expansionism’ in the Latin American continent. ‘The Latin
American Communist Parties, which are part of the “colonial and dependent sector”
of the Communist world picture’, the INR observed, ‘have for the past several years
pursued a “national liberation front” program’.55
Washington’s decision to support a coup against Arbenz’s government, in 1954, was
fostered by the perception that the Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT), the
Guatemalan Communist Party, was following a ‘National Liberation’ strategy. For CIA
analysts, in the long run the alliance between the PGT, the labour confederations and
Arbenz, under the flags of the Frente Democrático Nacional, threatened to lead to the
326 V. Pettinà
establishment of a ‘People’s Democracy’ regime in Guatemala.56 Paul H. Nitze, the
Chief of the Policy Planning Staff, emphasised this point during a bitter conversation
with Thomas Mann, Acting Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs.57 When the
latter had described the situation in Guatemala as similar to that of Lázaro Cardenas’
Mexico in the 1930s, suggesting that the United States should ‘let things in Guatemala
take their course . . . and the pendulum . . . would have swung back’, Nitze snapped.
Finding Mann’s statement naı̈ve, he pointed out that ‘during the last twenty years the
Communists have developed their mechanism, which makes the situation a little
different in Guatemala from what it was in Mexico’.58 Although the CIA knew that
communist numbers were very low in Guatemala, American intelligence considered
that the ‘National Liberation’ strategy represented a tool that would obviate the
numerical problem by securing key positions in the administration.59 Not
surprisingly, the CIA directly linked what was happening in Guatemala to post-
World War II East Europe. As the Agency pointed out, in accordance with the
‘National Liberation’ strategy ‘Communist minorities took control and delivered to
USSR domination the former countries of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Poland
and others’. Now, CIA analysts argued, the Soviets were trying to replicate their success
in Guatemala.60 Of course, unlike Hungary or Czechoslovakia, Guatemala was
thousands of miles from the Iron Curtain and, above all, from the Red Army. Yet the
Eisenhower administration’s developing global perception of the Cold War battlefield
was stronger than these geographical considerations. Indeed, with the US-orchestrated
coup in Guatemala, Latin America had fully entered the new global Cold War era.

The Cuban case

The analysis of the relationship between American diplomacy and the Cuban
insurrection led by Fidel Castro between 1956 and January 1959 offers interesting clues
on the impact of the Cold War on US relations with Latin American nationalism.
In December 1956, Fidel Castro landed on Cuba’s eastern shore, leading a small group
of armed men. His target was Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship. Batista had legitimately
ruled Cuba between 1940 and 1944 but, on March 1952, he had abruptly recovered
power through a military coup. Although Castro’s landing resulted in a failure, he was
eventually able to reach the Sierra Maestra mountains where he started a guerrilla war
aimed at bringing democracy back to the country.61 In the spring of 1957, after barely
one year of struggle, US diplomatic sources estimated the chances of Batista’s regime
surviving through 1958 as low.62
The instability of the Batista dictatorship and the activity of a guerrilla movement
worried Washington for many reasons. Firstly, there was the issue related to the
copious American community residing on the island. Its destiny, in the case of an
escalation of violence, was a matter of concern. Also, US diplomats worried about the
huge American investments on the island and their fate in case the regime collapsed.
Washington feared a scenario of chaos and anarchy, which could be generated by
Batista’s fall.63
 Cold War History 327

Nonetheless, American fears were mainly fuelled by the nuance of the emerging
Castro leadership. Between September 1957 and January 1959, William Wieland, chief
of the Middle American Desk (MID) at Foggy Bottom and Earl T. Smith, the American
Ambassador in Cuba, were involved in several distinct efforts to find a solution to the
crisis. All of these attempts tried to avoid the victory of the main and probably most
popular force of opposition to Batista, Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement.64 Thus,
when at the end of 1958 Castro’s victory was only a matter of time, American
diplomacy toyed with the idea of supporting a military Junta to prevent it.65 Indeed, as
Secretary of State Christian Herter wrote in a Memorandum to President Eisenhower
in December 1958: ‘the Department clearly does not want to see Castro succeed to the
leadership of the Government’.66
During the first stages of the insurrection, uneasiness toward Castro was fuelled by a
lack of information concerning both his leadership and the 26th of July Movement’s
political programme. This was in part because of the limitations geography imposed
on the capabilities of American intelligence to investigate the Movement. In January
1959, the State Department issued a paper aimed at analysing the obstacles it had faced
in collecting information on the political orientations of the insurrection. The
document outlined that ‘the virtual isolation of Castro and the other leaders of the
Movement’ had proved a grave handicap to gathering ‘hard intelligence’.67 In fact,
throughout the insurrection, Castro’s group had been isolated in the inaccessible Sierra
Maestra mountains, encircled by Batista’s army and cut off from the outside by the
press censorship established by its regime.
But, in reality, geography had only exasperated a deeper problem related to the
collection of information. The real obstacle in gathering hard intelligence and
the factor that fostered American hostility toward the insurrection during 1957 was
the dichotomy represented by the vagueness of Castro’s political contents and his clear,
radical nationalistic orientation.68 During the insurrection, Castro’s discourse had
been politically vague or, as pointed out by the State Department, ‘nebulous’. In fact, at
this time, the 26th of July Movement leader had not yet clearly formulated a political
programme. Facing his sentence for the July 1953 assault on the Moncada Cuban Army
Barracks, Castro had talked of democracy, agrarian reform and nationalisations of
certain public services. But he had not entered into further details or specified the
means by which he intended to carry out his reforms. In addition, between 1956 and
1959 he more than once changed the focus of his programme depending on his
interlocutors.69 Commenting in February 1957 on Castro’s programme, John
L. Topping, the officer in charge of political affairs at the American Embassy in La
Havana, resumed American scepticism about the guerrilla leader and his movement.
Topping argued that in his programme Castro had ‘talked vaguely of agrarian reform,
socialization of profits, industrialization of Cuba by Cubans’. Yet the programme was
too nebulous to allow a reliable assessment.70 He added that Castro’s call for
democracy should be taken ‘in quotes, because there is no indication of just what they
conceive the term to mean. They [Castro and his followers] seem to prefer violence to
negotiation, bullets to ballots’.71 Being unable to make an assessment of his political
328 V. Pettinà
programme, the American diplomats focused on the ideological implication of
Castro’s discourse. In spite of his vagueness in term of political contents, Castro had
been ideologically fairly understandable. He had stressed the urge for radical reform of
Cuban politics and of its economic development model. Castro had attacked the old
politicians and claimed to be heir to Cuba’s Founding Father José Martı́’s progressive
nationalism.72 John Topping translated Castro’s ideology in these terms: ‘They (Castro
and his followers) are hell-bent on change, and led by an unusual man dedicated,
fanatical, impractical, possibly megalomaniac. There is reason to believe that he is
exceptionally ambitious. He pictures himself as the great Cuban leader of the present
generation’. The American diplomat concluded that Castro’s ideology seemed to be
‘nationalistic and somewhat socialistic’, a judgement literally replicated in a State
Department report in January 1959.73
Eventually, the lack of confidence in Castro due to his political vagueness evolved
into hostility. The Americans began identifying Castro’s ideological discourse as
rooted in a progressive nationalism that, since the early 1950s, they recognised as being
a threatening variable of the global Cold War scenario. Adjectives like ‘nationalistic
and socialistic’, when describing Castro’s ideology, were the very same words used by the
CIA to define the kind of problematic nationalism spreading through the Third World
and potentially being subjected to Soviet influence. During 1958 this perspective was
decisively strengthened by the perception that communists had the capacity to infiltrate
Castro’s movement using his radical nationalism like a Trojan horse.
Through the first year of the insurrection, Washington had generally linked the risk
of a communist takeover in Cuba to the chaos generated by the insurrection in the
country. In April 1957, a National Intelligence Estimate argued that Arbenz’s
overthrow had lowered the chance for communists to strengthen their position in
Central America and the Caribbean. Nonetheless, the CIA considered the conditions
in Cuba to be somewhat different. For American intelligence, the mere existence ‘of
non-Communist subversion involving exiled groups’ offered communists a chance to
broaden their base.74 During a conversation with State Department officers in May
1957, Topping confirmed this opinion, stressing that communists ‘were doing all they
could to fan the breeze and had everything to gain from chaotic conditions in the
country’.75 William Wieland shared this view. In a memorandum to Roy Rubottom,
the Assistant Secretary for Latin America, he argued that the insurrection was
providing ‘a fertile ground for a resurgence of communism in the island’. Moreover,
the State Department official warned that even if the communists were ‘biding their
time in the current crisis, letting other resort to violence’, they were ready to ‘intensify
their activity’ in the event of a breakdown of authority.76
After April 1958, American concerns over a communist takeover in Cuba grew. In
fact, Washington began worrying about the increasing contacts between Castro and
the Cuban Communist Party: the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP). From the very
beginning of the insurrection, American diplomats had been busy trying to determine
whether Castro could be considered a Marxist and what the nature of his relationship
with the PSP was. Since 1957, Wieland and the MID had already concluded that Castro
 Cold War History 329
77
was neither a Marxist nor was the insurrection communist inspired. In spite of what
he later claimed in his memoirs and during his declarations facing a Senate
investigation, the American documents clearly show that even Ambassador Smith had
come to the same conclusion.78 The CIA was also persuaded that Castro could not be
classified as a Marxist. On 12 March 1958, a CIA agent was able to reach Castro’s
headquarters in the Sierra Maestra, where he spent two weeks and had a personal talk
with the rebels’ leader. In his report to the CIA director, Allen Dulles, the officer
confirmed that Castro was not a Marxist and added that, even if some communists had
joined the guerrillas, he did not find ‘much evidence’ of communist infiltration into
the 26th of July Movement.79 Indeed, the PSP had been initially very cold toward the
26th of July Movement and Fidel Castro himself. Communist leaders had at first
labelled the young rebel leader as a bourgeois adventurist. During the first year of the
insurrection the PSP had boycotted Castro’s insurrection.80
However, during the first months of 1958 the PSP began to change its strategy. In an
editorial column published in the middle of March by the communist newspaper
Alerta, the PSP had declared that it felt sympathetic toward the action carried out by
the rebels. It also offered to support and collaborate with the guerrillas in
strengthening its link with the masses.81 Although we will have to await the opening of
Cuban archives to be certain, this change was probably a consequence of the new
directives for Latin American Communist Parties adopted in November 1957 at the
Soviet Union ‘Coordination of International Communist Movement Meeting’. During
the summit, A.B. Sivolobov, the head of the Latin American section within the Central
Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, had stressed the need for a more proactive
policy in the Western Hemisphere. He had invited Latin American Communist Parties
to renew their efforts to destroy the ‘rearguard of the principal imperialist power’ in
the region. Sivolobov had also pointed out that the last week of January should be
declared the ‘week of solidarity with the Cuban people’.82 In Cuba, it is very probable
that the new directive took the form of an intensification of the PSP’s struggle against
Batista’s regime and, hence, led to the decision to support its main opposition force:
Fidel Castro and his guerrillas.
At first, Castro had rejected the PSP’s offer of support. The CIA agent who visited
the Sierra Maestra headquarters had reported this to Dulles.83 But, as recalled by
Ernesto Guevara in his memoirs of the guerrilla war, April 1958 was a turning point for
the political equilibriums within the insurrection.84 Specifically, the 26th of July
Movement had called for a general strike to begin on 9 April. According to the original
blueprint, the general mobilisation fostered by the strike and supported by the
guerrilla army should have forced Batista’s dismissal. During the preparation for the
strike, the question of a communist participation had become a source of tension
within the Movement. The liberal urban sector of the Movement, el llano, had strongly
opposed communist participation. On the other hand, Guevara and Fidel’s brother
Raúl had been keener to accept communist participation.85 The details of the debate
are not yet well known but the anti-communist opinion prevailed and Castro excluded
the PSP from joining the strike.
330 V. Pettinà
A few days after the strike had begun, it was evident that the attempt had not
succeeded. Poor planning, internal divisions and, above all, lack of organised and
disciplined grass-roots support were cause of the fiasco.86 The failure shook the
Movement. Castro went into attack, accusing the urban-moderates of sectarianism
and blaming them for the failure. At a crucial meeting held at the beginning of May,
Castro decided to concentrate all the Movement’s decisional power in the Sierra
Maestra and was nominated the Supreme Commandant of the Movement.87 At the
same time, the 26th of July Movement began to modify its position towards the PSP.
Some communists joined the guerrilla force and in the summer of 1958 a communist
group commanded by Félix Torres opened a new guerrilla front in the Yaguajay area,
very close to where Raul Castro had earlier opened a second front.88 During the
summer, the interaction between the PSP and Castro’s movement increased
considerably and one of its top leaders, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, was seconded to
the Sierra Maestra. In the course of 1958, the PSP became part of the opposition to the
Batista regime.89
From April, American diplomacy had been tracing the communist approach and
the beginning of the new relationship between the PSP and the 26th of July Movement.
At the end of July, Topping wrote to the State Department pointing out that
communism ‘both internationally and through the Cuban Communist Party’ was
trying to ‘associate itself with Castro’s Movement, and is probably actively assisting it’.
According to Topping, the communists had ‘penetrated the Movement’, despite him
being unable to assess to what extent.90 In the next few months, American reports lost
some of the prudence they had showed between April and the summer. Indeed, in
November a Special National Estimate issued by the CIA stressed that Castro was not
sufficiently in control of his ‘far flung guerrillas’ to prevent communist infiltration
even if this is what he desired. For the CIA, communists had in the last months come
to occupy ‘moderately important positions in the movements’. The report concluded
that the ‘nationalistic’ line held by the movement represented ‘a horse which the
Communists know well how to ride’.91 In December 1958, Dulles’ successor, Christian
Herter, debating with Eisenhower pointed out that communists were ‘utilizing the
Castro movement to the same extent, as would be expected’. Apparently, Herter also
took into consideration the possibility of using the 1954 Organization of American
States ‘Caracas Resolution’, which had allowed Washington to intervene in Guatemala
against Arbenz, to prevent Castro from taking power. However, in the end, Herter
rejected that possibility pointing out that there was ‘insufficient evidence on which to
base a charge that the rebels are Communist dominated’.92 Between the end of
December and the beginning of January, American diplomacy tried to play its last
card: the establishment of a military Junta led by the Cuban Generals Eulogio Cantillo
and Ramón Barquı́n.93 The plan failed. On 2 January, Camilo Cienfuegos’ and
Guevara’s 26th of July Movement’s columns, after having entered La Havana,
immediately took control of the Army headquarters, Camp Columbia, and its main
stronghold in the city, La Cabaña military base.94 The military coup was eventually
prevented but the battle between Washington and Castro had just begun.
 Cold War History 331

Although it is certain that after April Castro had changed his strategy and opened
the insurrection to PSP’s participation, the state of the relationship between the Cuban
Communist Party and the 26th of July Movement was not that described by the CIA.
Certainly, Castro’s nationalism offered elements of compatibility with the
communists’ strategies and, in fact, after a false start both subjects had found fertile
ground for convergence. Nonetheless, Castro was in full control of his guerrillas and
perfectly capable of preventing any attempt to infiltrate his Movement. The Cuban
rebel had consciously opened the insurrection to the PSP to alter to his advantage the
political match of forces within the Movement and to gain more organised and
disciplined support.95 Moreover, in spite of the PSP’s relative numerical force,
nationalism had traditionally held a hegemonic position over other ideological
paradigms in Cuba, including communism. Since independence in 1898, governments,
political parties and even trade unions had been dominated by nationalism and the
communists had mainly followed from a subaltern position.96 In fact, when top
communist leader Rafael Rodriguez joined the guerrillas in the Sierra, he had to accept
Castro’s position as supreme leader of the opposition to Batista.97 At any rate, Castro
was the one able to use the PSP for his objectives, not the other way round.
On the one hand, then, the CIA and the MID were right: Castro was developing an
increasingly close relationship with the communists. On the other hand, Castro’s
assumption of the communist cause and ideology was far from certain in 1958.
However, Washington at this point could not see matters in such shades of grey,
and was far too quick to accept Castro as a lost cause. US officials failed to recognise that
Castro was in control. But nationalists were now suspected, because they were
considered targets and potential recruits for the communist camp. Washington became
persuaded that the PSP was able to ‘infiltrate’ the 26th of July Movement using
the nationalist card and, eventually, take control of the insurrection. By declining
to engage with him, Washington only encouraged Castro to move solidly into the
communist camp.

Conclusions
The convergence of the East –West conflict and the North– South divide, on the brink
of decolonisation, inaugurated one of the most dramatic phases of the twentieth
century. After the end of World War II, Washington and Moscow began to see that
decolonisation and peripheral nationalisms were capable of altering the Cold War
balance of power. Indeed, in the 1950s, the launch of Peaceful Coexistence by
Khrushchev strengthened the relevance of the Third World in the Cold War scenario.
The fight for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Third World eventually resulted in an
acceleration of the decolonisation process. It also created space and resources for
accelerating development strategies. Drawn by the quest for modernisation of
nationalist elites in Southern Asia and the Middle East, the two superpowers fought a
war based on their own recipes for social and economic development. In Egypt, the
new global Cold War helped Nasser to build dams, to refurbish his army and to shield
332 V. Pettinà
his country’s independence from outdated European imperial dreams. In Morocco
and Tunisia it supported the independence process.
But the global Cold War did not just create opportunities. The increasing tensions
between Washington and Moscow in the periphery from 1954 also produced dramas
and came to interfere with the legitimate strategies of development. The state-based
path to economic modernisation offered by the Soviet Union seemed to better match the
needs of Third World nationalism. Also, political alliances, theorised by Soviet Marxism
after the October Revolution, gave Moscow a powerful tool for approaching nationalism.
This disparity of conditions was well perceived in Washington and, within the Eisenhower
administration, it led to suspicion, if not hostility, towards peripheral progressive
nationalisms. In Iran, for example, Washington feared that convergence between
Mohammad Mosaddegh and the local Communist Party, the Tudeh, could change
geopolitical equilibrium in the region. This perception led to an Anglo-American-
supported coup that in 1954 brought down Mosaddegh’s nationalist government.
Historiography has usually excluded Latin America from this global perspective.
Nonetheless, as this article has tried to demonstrate, throughout the 1950s Washington
clearly perceived the Western Hemisphere as part of a bigger game, where converging
nationalism and Soviet foreign policy were threatening American security. In the
Western Hemisphere, the global Cold War produced mixed results as well. As the
Bolivian case shows, when the Eisenhower administration felt that nationalism was far
enough from Moscow, it plainly helped and aided the process of reform carried on by
nationalist movements. By contrast, in Guatemala, the global Cold War perception led
to intervention. The interaction between Arbenz’s nationalist government and the local
Communist Party was read through a Cold War lens and targeted as Moscow’s likely
effort to alter the equilibrium between the superpowers in the region. Although less
evident, during its insurrection stage Cuba replicated this scenario. This article has
shown that American diplomacy considered Castro a radical nationalist, not a Marxist.
But, in the global Cold War context, his nationalism alone made him suspect. When,
after 9 April, the 26th of July Movement and PSP began strengthening their relations, the
Americans perceived that the communists were using Castro’s nationalism to ‘infiltrate’
and eventually ‘gain influence over the insurrection’. The Eisenhower administration
did not try to challenge this convergence and, in this sense, its reaction did not diverge
very much from the one Washington had had in Iran or Guatemala. To be sure, it did not
go about planning a coup, but this was because Castro was not yet in power. Instead,
Washington tried to stop him from ‘succeeding to the leadership of the Government’. It
is not easy to assess what would have happened without a global Cold War structure
standing behind the Cuban scenario. Possibly some sort of compromise between Castro
and Washington would then have been possible or, at least, tried by American
diplomacy. But counterfactual history is swampy terrain. This article aimed to show
that global considerations – rather than purely economic aims or inability to
differentiate between communism and progressive nationalism – played a crucial role
in affecting American perception of Castro’s nationalism and, hence, strongly
contributed to shaping US strategy toward the insurrection.
 Cold War History 333

Acknowledgements
The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation has funded this research through the project
HAR2009-09844, directed by Dr. Consuelo Naranjo Orovio (CSIC-CCHS).

Notes
[1] See, for instance, Morley, Imperial; Alzugaray, Crónica; Gott, Cuba. The same historical
perspective, applied to the broader Latin American context, can be found in: Loayza, ‘An
Aladdin’s Lamp’.
[2] The issue related to the confusion between nationalism and communism in the Third World,
during the Eisenhower administration, goes far behind the Cuban and the Latin American
scenarios. The best resume of this historical perspective, applied to several different cases,
can be found in: McMahon, ‘Eisenhower’. For Latin America see: Rabe, Eisenhower,
especially 46– 8. For the Cuban case see: Benjamin, The United States.
[3] Central Intelligence Agency, Freedom of Information Act (hereafter cited as CIA FOIA), The
Break-up of the Colonial Empires and its Implications for U.S. Security, 9 March 1948,
International Estimate, Confidential, 1.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Westad, The Global.
[6] Central Intelligence Agency, Freedom of Information Act (hereafter cited as CIA FOIA), The
Break-up of the Colonial Empires and its Implications for U.S. Security, 9 March 1948,
International Estimate, Confidential, 1.
[7] Westad, The Global, 114.
[8] Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War.
[9] ‘Views on Coexistence Idea in Washington’, The New York Times, 17 November 1954, 3.
[10] ‘Dulles Condemns ,Guile. of Soviet on Aiding Underdeveloped Areas’, The New York Times,
9 December 1955, 1 and 8.
[11] ‘Policy for US? Stevenson’s View’, The New York Times, 22 April 1956, Section n. 4, 1.
[12] See Manela, The Wilsonian.
[13] Gaddis, We Now Know, 165. See also Connelly, A Diplomatic, 42– 64.
[14] ‘The Transcript of Eisenhower’s News Conference on Foreign and Domestic Issue’, The New
York Times, 5 April, 1956, 10.
[15] Gaddis, We Now Know, 168. Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 65.
[16] Connelly, A Diplomatic, 61. See also, Yaqub, Containing.
[17] Engermann and Unger, ‘Towards a Global’; see also, Touraine, Come liberarsi.
[18] Westad, The Global, 33; Osgood, Words and Deeds, 9; See also Letham, Modernization as
Ideology.
[19] Belmonte, Selling the American Way, 50 – 70.
[20] Hobsbawm, I Rivoluzionari, 68.
[21] ‘Current Communist Strategy in Non-industrialized Countries’, Problem of Communism,
September – October 1955, Vol. IV, no. 5, United States Information Services, Washington DC.
[22] CIA FOIA, Special Survey of Select Soviet Bloc Economic Activities in Certain Free World
Countries (September 1955), Secret, 3.
[23] Department of State Bulletin, ‘Soviet Bloc Offensive in Less Developed Area’, Vol. 38, no. 970,
144. Also see: CIA, FOIA, The Nature and Problems of Soviet Economic Penetration of
Underdeveloped Areas, 14 March 1956, Secret.
[24] Foreign Relations of the United States of America, 1955 – 57, Volume X, ‘Foreign Aid and
Economic Defense Policy, United States Government Printing Office, Washington 1989,
334 V. Pettinà
Memorandum of Conversation at the 266th Meeting of the National Security Council’,
Washington, 15 November 1955.
[25] Kaufman, Trade, 64.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Pravda, 15 February 1956, quoted in Communism in the Underdeveloped Countries, Soviet
Economic Expansionism, ‘Problem of Communism’, July– August 1958, Vol. 7, no. 4, p. 31,
United States Information Services, Washington DC.
[28] CIA FOIA, National Intelligence Estimate, NIE-95, The Soviet Bloc Courses of Action Through
Mid-1955, 25 September 1953, Top Secret, 6.
[29] Kanet, ‘The Soviet’, 5; Avieri, ‘Marxist’, 644.
[30] Fukuyama, El fin, 151.
[31] Shinn Junior, ‘The National Democratic’, 379; Light, The Soviet, 80– 90.
[32] Claudı́n, The Communist Movement, 461.
[33] See, for instance, Seton-Watson, The Eastern European; Krebs, Dueling Visions.
[34] US National Archives, Record Group 59 (hereafter quoted as NARA RG59) Records of
Component Offices of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 1947 –63, LOT87D33.
[35] Annino, ‘Ampliar la Nación’, 550; Carmagnani, América latina, 16– 7; Halperin Donghi,
Historia contemporánea, 295– 6. See also Knight, ‘Democratic and Revolutionary’; Lambert,
América Latina.
[36] Retrospective Collection, CIA Digital Reading Room, CIA Declassified Documents, Library of
Congress Washington DC, Operation General Intelligence Aid, CSHB-F 52-890-2, (Est. Pub.
Date) Principal Aspects of Socialism in Latin America, October 1958, Secret, vi– vii.
[37] Ibid., vii.
[38] Sewell, ‘A Perfect (Free Market) World?’, 855; Zubok, A Failed Empire.
[39] Becker and McClenahan Jr., The Market, The State, 32– 9.
[40] Hilton, ‘The United States, Brazil’; Ameringer, The Cuban Democratic Experience.
[41] ‘South America is Beset by Internal Inflation as World Prices Fall’, The New York Times,
7 January 1953, 47 and 72. Siekmeier, Aid, Nationalism, 159.
[42] CIA FOIA, National Intelligence Estimate, Soviet Bloc Economic Warfare Capabilities and
Courses of Action, NIE 10-54, 9 April 1954, Secret, 9.
[43] Bethell and Roxborough, Latin America, 22.
[44] Adamson, ‘The Most Important’, 54.
[45] The New York Times, 8 April 1956, 27.
[46] Lehman, ‘Revolutions and Attributions’, 185.
[47] Siekmeier, ‘Persistent Condor’, 201.
[48] Adamson, ‘The Most Important’, 48– 9.
[49] Rabe, Eisenhower, 65– 6.
[50] See, for instance, Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area.
[51] Graziosi, L’URSS, 186; See also, Sewell, ‘A Perfect’.
[52] ‘Cabot Points Way in Latin America’, The New York Times, 18 March 1953, 47.
[53] Gilbert, ‘What We Now Know’, 21.
[54] Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security
Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary United States
Senate (hereafter cited as SISS Hearings), Communist Threat to the United States trough the
Caribbean, hearings before the subcommittee to investigate the administrations of internal
security act and other internal security laws, part III, testimony of General C.P. Cabell,
Deputy Director, Central Intelligence, Agency, 5 November 1959, United States Government
Printing Office, Washington 1960. Library of Congress, Washington DC.
[55] British National Archives, Foreign Office Department, American Department, General,
A 1015/13, 1953, Communism in Latin America. Department of State, Intelligence Report No.
 Cold War History 335

5180.12. Communism in the Other American Republics, Quarterly Survey, October– December,
1952, Secret, 10.
[56] CIA FOIA, Field Comments on NIE-70, ‘Conditions and Trends in Latin America Affecting US’,
4 March 1953, Secret, 2.
[57] In 1949, Paul H. Nitze joined the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and became
George F. Kennan’s successor as Director of Policy Planning. In 1950, he wrote a classified
memo for the National Security Council, NSC 68, which became the blueprint for the
American strategy in the long Cold War years. In 1953, Nitze moved from the State
Department to the Pentagon, serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Affairs.
[58] CIA FOIA, Conversation regarding Guatemala with Policy Planning Staff Members of State
Department, 3 April 1953, Secret, 2.
[59] On this point see also: Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, 191.
[60] CIA FOIA, Communist Penetration of Guatemala, 16 February 1954, Secret, 1.
[61] Szulc, Fidel, 289– 300.
[62] CIA FOIA, National Intelligence Estimate, Number 80– 57, Political Stability in Central America
and the Caribbean Through 1958, 23 April 1957, Secret, 1. See also: NARA RG 59, Intelligence
and Research. Division of Research for American Republics. Special Paper No. 132 (INR)
LOT75D242 CU22 17 May 1957, Secret, 1.
[63] US National Archives, College Park, MD, Record Group 59 (hereafter cited as NARA RG59),
737.00/11-2157 Office Memorandum, United States Government. To ARA-Mr. Rubottom,
Form MID Mr. Wieland and Mr. Stewart. Possible United States Courses of Action in Restoring
Normalcy to Cuba, Secret, 1.
[64] SISS Hearings, Communist Threat to the United States Through the Caribbean, Testimony of Earl
T. Smith, Eighty-Sixth Congress, Second Session, Part 9, 27, 30 August 1960; Smith, The
Fourth Floor, 228.
[65] NARA RG59, 737.00/3-2458, Office Memorandum, From MID, C. Allan Stewart, Thru MID,
Mr. Wieland, to ARA Mr. Snow, Dr. Varona’s Views on Civilian – Military Junta Membership,
Secret; CIA FOIA, SNIE 85/1-58, 16 December 1958, No. 288, Special National Intelligence
Estimate, The Situation in Cuba, Secret, 2; see also Paterson, Contesting Castro, 207– 9;
Skierka, Fidel Castro, 64.
[66] Retrospective Collection, CIA Digital Reading Room, CIA Declassified Documents, Library
of Congress Washington DC, Department of State, Memorandum for the President
from Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter. Subject: Cuba, Top Secret, 22 December
1958, 3.
[67] NARA RG59, 611.37/1-1559, State Department. Draft White Paper on Cuba, Official Use Only.
[68] On Castro’s dichotomy see Annino, Dall’Insurrezione, 71.
[69] O’Connor, The Origins, 44– 6.
[70] NARA RG59, 737.00/2-2857, Foreign Service Dispatch. From AmEmbassy Habana, to the
Department of State, Washington. 28 February 1957, Situation in Cuba: Articles in New York
Times by Herbert L. Matthews, Secret, 4.
[71] NARA RG59, 737.00/2-2857, Foreign Service Dispatch. From AmEmbassy Habana, to the
Department of State, Washington. 28 February 1957, Situation in Cuba: Articles in New York
Times by Herbert L. Matthews, Secret, 4.
[72] Annino, Dall’Insurrezione, 71.
[73] NARA RG59, 737.00/2-2857, Foreign Service Dispatch. From AmEmbassy Habana, to the
Department of State, Washington. 28 February 1957, Situation in Cuba: Articles in New York
Times by Herbert L. Matthews, Secret, 4; Library of Congress RG59 State Department
Records, Staff Summary Biographic Supplement. Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Leader, 9
January 1959, Confidential, 2.
336 V. Pettinà
[74] CIA FOIA, National Intelligence Estimate, Number 80-57, Political Stability in Central America
and the Caribbean Through 1958, 23 April 1957, Secret, 1.
[75] NARA RG59, Records of Component of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research 1947 – 63, Lot
75d242 Box 15, Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, Revolutionary
Development in Cuba and other Matters, 28 May 1957, Official Use Only, 3.
[76] NARA RG59, 737.00/11-2157 Office Memorandum, United States Government. To ARA-
Mr. Rubottom, Form MID Mr. Wieland and Mr. Stewart. Possible United States Courses of
Action in Restoring Normalcy to Cuba, Secret, 1.
[77] NARA RG59, Records of Component of Offices of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research
1947 –63, Lot 75D242 Box 15, INR Ambassador Hugh S. Cuming; DRA Robert A. Stevenson;
Background Information on the Cuban Political Situation, Confidential, 7 April 1958, 1.
[78] NARA RG59 737.00/3-1058 Foreign Service Dispatch, From AmEmbassy, Habana to the
Department of State, Washington. Fidel Castro Ruiz; Documents Concerning Him and His
Activities: Appraisal, Secret.
[79] CIA FOIA, NSC Briefing, Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence, Report on
(Portion Sanitized)’s Visit to the Fidel Castro Headquarters in the Sierra Maestra (12– 26
March 1958), 11 April 1958, Secret.
[80] Bonachea and San Martı́n, The Cuban Insurrection, 220– 1.
[81] Alerta article is quoted in ‘Castro Rebels Reject Backing of Cuban Reds’, Chicago Daily Tribune,
26 March 1958, 11.
[82] The Meeting is summarised in a CIA paper: CIA FOIA, (EST PUB DATE) CPSU Coordination of
International Communist Movement: Implement, created in 25 July 1958, Secret, 6.
[83] CIA FOIA, NSC Briefing, Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence, Report on
[portion sanitised]’s Visit to the Fidel Castro Headquarters in the Sierra Maestra (12– 26
March 1958), Secret.
[84] Guevara, Obras Completas, 465.
[85] Balfour, Castro, 55; Sweig, Inside, 127; NARA RG59, LOT75D242 CU244, INR, DRA, Special
Paper No. A-8-9, Raul Castro and Communist Infiltration of the 26th of July Movement, 10
July 1958, Secret.
[86] NARA RG59, 737.00/5-558, Foreign Service Dispatch, From AmEmbassy, Habana to The
Department of State, Causes for Failure of General Strike Attempt, Confidential; Balfour,
Castro, 55.
[87] Guevara, La Guerra, 167– 72; Sweig, Inside, 150.
[88] Sweig, Inside, 221.
[89] Paterson, Contesting Castro, 185– 6.
[90] NARA RG59, 737.00/7-3058, Foreign Service Dispatch, From AmEmbassy to the
Department of State, Fidel Castro Ruz; Documents Concerning Him and His Activities:
Appraisal, Secret.
[91] Retrospective Collection, CIA Digital Reading Room, CIA Declassified Documents, Library of
Congress Washington DC, Special National Intelligence Estimate, The Situation in Cuba,
SNIE 85-58, 24 November 1958, 3, n. 292.
[92] Retrospective Collection, CIA Digital Reading Room, CIA Declassified Documents, Library of
Congress Washington DC, Department of State, Washington, Memorandum for the
President, Subject Cuba, 23 December 1958, 3.
[93] Skierka, Fidel Castro, 64– 6.
[94] Paterson, Contesting Castro, 208– 9; Coltman, The Real Fidel, 136– 9.
[95] Balfour, Castro, 54; Skierka, Fidel Castro, 61.
[96] On Cuban nationalism see, for instance, Kapcia, Cuba; Rojas, Isla.
[97] Skierka, Fidel Castro, 61.
 Cold War History 337

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