During the twentieth century, the United States intervened multiple times, covertly and overtly, in the affairs of Latin American states that behaved in a manner Washington found unacceptable. The United States’ conduct was not unique. Past empires have acted on the conviction that the powerful must do what they must in order to protect or aggrandize their power. What differentiated the behavior of the United States from those of past empires was its belief that its leaders and people were guided by a superior ethical code, and therefore possessed the legitimate right to act against those who were less enlightened.
Latin American leaders never had difficulty discerning duplicitous words and behavior. But until the start of the 1960s, none had dared to question the United States’ actions, because they all feared its power and wrath. Then Fidel Castro came along, and for more than five decades he informed US presidents decisively that he was no one's puppet and that regardless of how much pressure Washington exerted on him and his regime, he and his compatriots would decide what was best for them. Despite his bravado, Castro was also a realist who recognized that he had to develop a modus vivendi with Washington. In this book, William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh describe and explain masterfully the secret negotiations between the two international rivals, and the repeated ups and downs both sides experienced as they tried to reduce their differences.
Those who share the belief that leaders can alter the course of history may contend that there were many times that Havana and Washington could have reached a reasonable compromise, had they been imaginative and dared to take political risks. Even the most adroit political leaders, however, are not always able to overcome the constraints that define their country's history. LeoGrande and Kornbluh delineate in great detail the multiple domestic and international obstacles that US and Cuban leaders, along with their respective negotiators, encountered during their protracted and intricate negotiations.
Their narrative begins with Castro's ascension to power and the attempts by the Dwight Eisenhower administration to figure out how to respond to a 32-year-old Cuban who had marched triumphantly into Havana on January 8, 1959 and announced to a large awaiting crowd that with the demise of the Fulgencio Batista regime a new era was about to begin in Cuba. Thereafter, nearly every US president sought to curtail Castro's influence throughout Latin America and transform Cuba's domestic political and economic systems. Eventually, Washington managed to derail Castro's attempts to propagate his political vision beyond his country's borders, but failed to topple his regime or force him to change it.
During that entire period, each US president recognized that it was in the interests of the United States to negotiate with the Castro regime. As explained by LeoGrande and Kornbluh, their reasons varied, as did their commitment to finding a common ground. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush despised the Cuban leader, and the last three actually hoped to get rid of him and replace his regime with a democratic one. But they all failed. It took them a while to admit that success would require a full-blown invasion that would generate very high human, material, and international political costs. Eventually, they resorted to restrictive measures and anti-Castro propaganda.
For a brief time, Nixon and Ford benefited from the ideological flexibility of Henry Kissinger, who as national security advisor had helped facilitate the creation of better US relationships with the Soviet Union and China. As one of his former deputies noted, for Kissinger, “Cuba was the next step.” Kissinger's efforts, however, also came to naught, largely because Castro was unwilling to accept the US directive that Cuba remove forces from Angola. For Castro, the demand was duplicitous. The CIA already had a heavy footprint in Angola; therefore, why should not Cuba pursue its own interests in the region? John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, were also guided by the belief that Cuba had to change its ways, but sought to ameliorate their differences in less aggressive ways. They also failed.
Why did it take Washington and Havana 54 years to restore diplomatic relations? The answer is not complex. On matters of great significance, domestic politics are rarely divorced from international politics. Convinced that politically they could not afford to alienate members of the exiled Cuban community, particularly those who resided in Florida, all presidents who initiated negotiations with Havana after Castro came to power took extraordinary steps to ensure that they would remain secret, and kept a close watch on the next election cycle. Political survival was always on their radar, and as LeoGrande and Kornbluh show, they had very good reasons. Whenever the leading members of the anti-Castro community in the United States learned that Washington was thinking of reaching some type of agreement with the Castro regime, they intensified their efforts to prevent its conclusion.
But domestic politics was not the sole reason to be concerned with secrecy. Deeply rooted mindsets are hard to renounce. As already indicated, during the twentieth century America's leaders became addicted to the belief that foreign leaders who defied America's interests in vital regions could be swayed by intense military and economic pressure. North Vietnam's disposition to absorb unimaginably high human and material costs during the 1960s should have alerted Washington that such a belief was questionable. It did not. The original mindset regained its earlier appeal under the Reagan administration. And though it lost some of its rigidity during Clinton's presidency, it regained its old form when the two members of the Bush clan were at the helm.
The convergence of several distinct features made the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana possible in 2014. At that particular moment in history, a president led the United States who questioned the mindset that dominated many of his predecessors’ thinking. In his presidential inaugural speech, Barack Obama stated, “Our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.” Nearly five years later, he added context to his original pronouncement when he said in Havana: “What the United States was doing was not working. We have to have the courage to acknowledge the truth.” Then, possibly to reinforce his earlier statement, Obama added, the “United States has neither the capacity nor the intention to impose change on Cuba.”
But like his predecessors, Obama was a politician always attuned to the political realities of the moment. By the time his administration had resumed negotiations in earnest with Havana, two things had changed in the United States’ domestic political landscape. First, the sentiment that the only solution to the Castro problem was to never compromise had lost substantial support among members of the American-Cuban community. Second, politically Barack Obama had nothing to lose; his final presidential election was behind him.
By the time the reader reaches the final pages of LeoGrande and Kornbluh's tour de force, it is difficult not to acknowledge that the book is more than a thorough account and analysis of US-Cuban secret diplomatic negotiations. In a circumspect and yet authoritative way, it is an attempt to alert Americans that their government must carefully reexamine its past actions toward weaker states, not just in the Western Hemisphere, but worldwide. How many more Vietnams, Afghanistans, Iraqs, or Cubas must the world endure before Americans recognize that their country does not always possess the capabilities or the expertise to bring about positive change elsewhere? And as Fidel Castro repeatedly reminded American negotiators, what right has Washington to tell international actors not to intervene in the affairs of others when it constantly does so itself? Perhaps the recognition that hypocrisy has too often obfuscated and damaged Washington's international actions could be the first step towards the development of a different mindset—one that acknowledges that the exercise of imperial power is not always the best remedy, and accepts that one formula does not fit all problems.
