CUBA AND THE STRANGE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP68-00046R000200150001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 26, 2014
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 1, 1964
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2014/03/26 : CIA-RDP68-00046R000200150001-1
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D AMERICAN OPINION
And The Strange CIA
Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the highly
literate Editor of US-France Report. He
has been a member of the editorial staffs
at Rinehart & Corn-
pany, The World
Publishing C o m
? pany, The Viking
Press, and Grossett
& Dunlap ? where
he was Editor of
? the Universal Libra-
' ? ry series for five years. Mr. Blumenfeld
is now in the process of organizing his
own publishinz house.
g THE CIA's Ems as a supporter of
Castro did not begin with the Bay of
Pigs fiasco. It began far back during
the Batista regime, when it collaborated
,with those Cubans working for the
overthrow of Batista and the installation
of Fidel Castro. , There is adequate
documentation for this in Ambassador
Earl E. T. Smith's book, The Fourth
Floor. In that volume the Ambassador
? writes:
On September 5, 1957, at the
; naval base in Cienfuegos in Las
las Province, Cuban naval officers, 't7
with the mutual assistance of civilian
revolutionaries, launched their
gest uprising ,up to that time against'"
? the Batista government. . . . Our in-
formation on the revolt' came to us.'.
through our No. 2 CIA man in the"'.:
? .Embassy, whose activities in giVing ?
, aid and comfort to the Castro forces.
.was disclosed at the court-martial of
? is.' I, the naval Officers who participated in
the .revolt.' At
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divulged that an officer of the,
American Embassy had advised the
' revolutionaries that, if the revolution '
were successful and Batista over-
'thrown, the United States would
recognize the revolutionaries. This
gave much moral encouragement to
the rebels.
The Ambassador was naturally
alarmed at the CIA's pro-Castro bias
and complete lack of concern over Cas-
tro's Communist background. In order
'to change this situation, Ambassador
Smith decided to get in touch with,
Allen Dulles, directly. He sent -a tele-
gram to the head of the CIA, marked
"Allen Dulles' Eyes Only." According.
to Smith, "The telegram 'recommended
the placing of an agent in the top
echelon of the Fidel Castro forces, then
hiding in the Sierra Maestra bills, so
that the CIA could keep themselves in-
formed as to the extent of Communist
infiltration and as to the extent of Com-
munist control of the Castro movement
[26th of July Movement]. I must as-
sume that this was never dode, or they
would have been better informed."
THROUGH Ambassador Smith's testi-
mony we know of the CIA's participa-
tion in the Cienfuegos revolt, and we
can wonder whether the CIA did more
to help Castro than Ambassador Smith
ever discovered. We do know 'that the
CIA immediately began' to organize the
anti-Communist opposition after Castro
acquired power: This may not ,have
been 'done because 'the. CIA 'intended to
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ove row Castro or because different
elements in the CIA were working at
cross purposes, but because they in-
tended to control the anti-Castro oppo-
sition from the very beginning and to
control it all the way.
This is not a terribly novel approach.
We have seen the same tactic employed
in CIA activities behind the Iron Cur-
tain. However, when resistance to the
Communist regime has become so
widespread that it reaches massive pro-
portions, the techniques used to destroy
it have invariably been the same as
those employed in Hungary: The revo-
lution is provoked prematurely by
American promises that outside aid will
be forthcoming. The revolt takes place
but the aid never arrives. The resistants
play themselves out and are eventually
crushed. America pleads its case in the
United Nations where it does the least
amount of good for the freedom fight-
ers, and the State Department weeps
crocodile tears until the heat dies down
and it can invite the new Communist
rulers to the White House.
What makes the above scheme so
dastardly is that the patriots revolt
prematurely before they have the power
to do the entire job successfully by them-
selves. In their eager desire for an early
liberation, they are willing to take the
risk of a premature uprising if they can
be sure of receiving outside help at the
crucial moment. The aid is vital for
there are never sanctuaries for escape:
It is aid and freedom or betrayal and
death. But the promised outside help
has never arrived, just as the air cover
over the Bay of Pigs never arrived when
it spelled the difference between success
and failure.
In Cuba, the CIA operated according
to past practice. For here, again, was
the CIA organizing the resistance in
advance and leading it into the bowels
of total hell. In the case of Cuba, it
led young men some with less than a
week of training ?-?- to the Bay of Pigs
" Continued
nni-laccifiinri in Part - Sanitized Com/ Approved for Release
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@50-Yr 2014/03/26 : CIA-kDP6.8-00046R000200150001-1