PADILLA: CASTRO'S SOLZHENITSYN?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001100100067-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 11, 2005
• Sequence Number: 67
• Publication Date: June 22, 1971
• Content Type: IM

 C/AlOe.l/i/-i - 17,1/71
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Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Memorandum
Padilla: Castro's Solzhenitsyn?
Secret
22 June 1971
No. 1711/71
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WARNING
--This document contains information alfec" ng the national
defense of the United States, within the meaning of Title
18, sections 793 and 794, of the US Code. as amended.
Its lea;?isrnission or revelation of its contents to or re-
ceipt by an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
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SECRET
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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Directorate of Intelligence
22 'rune 1971
INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM
Padilla: Castro's Solzhenitsyn?
Summary
Intellectuals in Fidel Castro's Cuba have gen-
erally enjoyed a degree of freedom that is rare in
a totalitarian state. As the Revolution progressed,
those authors and artists who found the deteriorat-
ing economic situation and the increasing regimenta-
tion too distasteful to stomach were often permitted
to live abroad with the regime's blessing. Ever
when poet Heberto Padilla overstepped the loosely
defined limits of politico-literary propriety in 1968
and was censured by the more doctrinaire segment of
the Cuban hierarchy, the collection of works for
which he was criticized was published. Although his
book of poems carried a prefatory note explaining
its "political weaknesses," the fact it was published
at all testified to Castro's willingness to allow
limited controversy in order to retain the support
of intellectuals both at home and abroad and to give
his regime an aura of freedom.
Since 1968, however, the picture has changed
radically. Well-intentioned but devastatingly accu-
rate criticism of the regime's economic and admin-
istrative policies from such highly trusted European
leftist intellectuals as Rene Dumont and K.S. Karol
reached Cuba in early 1970, just as Castro was be-
coming aware that, despite an all-out mobilization,
the premier goal of ten million tons of sugar would
Note: This memorandum was prepared by the Office of
Current Intelligence and coordinated within CIA.
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not be realized in that year's harvest. Although
Castro delivered an oblique but bitter attack on
his unnamed critics "in Paris and Rome" on 22 April
1970, he in effect confirmed many of their charges
on 26 July when he acknowledged in detail the seri-
ous plight of the economy. Even as he set cbout
adopting measures to counter the weaknesses and de-
ficiencies exposed by Karol and Dumont, he mounted
a feeble and ill-conceived campaign to discredit
them.
At this point, Padilla entered the picture.
He was caught, according to his own admission, try-
ing to smuggle out of Cuba a manuscript critical of
the Revolution for publication in Europe. Castro,
r ere Pa-
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more than two weeks had squeezed from him a farcical
"self-criticism" in which Padilla identified both
Karol and Dumont as "agents of the CIA." The "con-
fession" was not released until three weeks later"
perhaps to allow Padilla time to recover from the
effects of his imprisonment. On 30 April Castro
followed up Padilla's confession with a ringing de-
nunciation of those who found fault with the poet's
detention.
di a s arrest on 20 March 1971 and in a little
Padilla's Arrest had caused a relatively mild
protest from foreign intellectuals, who directed a
letter to Castro calling for his release; the ama-
teurish and degrading "self-criticism," however,
provoked a scathing letter expressing the "shame,
anger, and disillusionment" of 60 prominent intel-
lectuals in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The
letter barely stopped short of accusing the Cubans
of eliciting the confession by torture and said the
circumstances surrounding the incident "recall the
most sordid moment of the era of Stalinism with its
prefabricated verdicts and its witch huntF."
Although a few of the foreign intellectuals
have softened their attitudes, there is no sign that
Castro also intends to moderate his position. Indeed,
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there is evidence that Havana is taking steps that
can only further widen the gap. Castro may have
whipped the local intellectuals into line, but he
has done so at the expense of alienating, perhaps
permanently, a significant segment of foreign in-
tellectuals who have long given him their unquali-
fied and frequently unsolicited support. More
ominous is the suspicion that internal political
pressures in the Cuban hierarchy forced Castro to
pa;t a high price for what in effect is a minor vic-
tory. The Padilla affair coincides with the recent
trend toward more repression in Cuba and seems to
herald a period in which Cuba will be more exposed
to the rigors of a Stalinist strain of Communism
than to the heretofore more freewheeling brand of
Fidel Castro.
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INTELLECTUALS' FIRST LETTER TO CASTRO
"The signers, who support the principles and ob-
jectives of the Cuban revolution, appeal to you to ex-
press their concern about the arrest of the poet and
writer Heberto Padilla and request you be good enough
to examine the situation created by such an arrest.
Inasmuch as the Cuban Government has not supplied
any information up till now on this subject, we can
fear the reappearance of a sectarian development
stronger and more dangerous than the one you denounced
in March 1962 and which Commander "Che" Guevara re-
ferred to several times, when he denounced the sup-
pression of the right of criticism within the revolu-
tion.
At a time when the establishment of a Socialist
Government in Chile and the new situation created in
Peru and Bolivia are facilitating the collapse of the
criminal blockade of Cuba by United States imperialism,
the use of repressive measures against intellectuals
and writers who have exercised the right of criticism
in the revolution can only have profoundly negative ef-
fects on the anti-imperalistic forces of the entire
world and more particularly in Latin America, for
whom the Cuban revolution is a symbol and a flag.
in thanking you for the attention that you should
be kind enough to give to this request, we reaffirm
our solidarity with the principles which have guided
the struggle in the Sierra Maestra and which the Cuban
Government has expressed so many times in the words
and actions of its Prime Minister, "Che" Guevara and
so many other revolutionary leaders."
Carlos Barrel
Carlos Fuentes
Octavio Paz
Simone do Beauvoir
Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
Anne Philipe
Italo Calvino
Juan Goytisolo
Pigeon
Jose Maria Castellot
Luis Goytisolo
Jean Prontoau
Fernando Claudin
Alain Jouffroy
Rebeyrolles
Julio Cortazar
Andre Pieyre do Mandlargues
Rossana Rossanda
Jean Daniel
Joyce Mansour
Francisco Rosi
Marguerite Duras
Dionys Mascolo
Claude Roy
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Alberto Moravia
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Pierre Faye
Maurice Nadeau
Jorge Semprun
Carlos Franqui
Helene Parmelin
Mario Vargas Uosa
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INTELLECTUALS' SECOND LETTER TO CASTRO
We hold that it is our duty to inform you of our
shame and anger.
The deplorable text of the confession signed by
Heberto Padilla can only have been obtained by means
that amount to the negation of revolutionary legality
and justice.
The contents of this confession, with its absurb
accusations and delirious assertions, as well as the
pitiable parody of self-criticism to which Heberto
Padilla and Comrades Belkis Cuza, Diaz Martinez, Cesar
Lopez and Pablo Armando Fernandez submitted to at the
seat of the National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists,
recall the most sordid moments of the era of Stalinism,
with its prefabricated verdicts and its witch hunts.
(It is] with the same vehemence that from the very
first day was ours in defending the Cuban revolution,
which seemed to us exemplary in its respect for the
human being and ~n its struggle for liberation, that
we exhort you to spare Cuba dogmatic obscurantism,
cultural xenophobia and the repressive system imposed
by Stalinism on the socialist countries and of which
events similar to those now occurring in Cuba were
flagrant manifestations.
The contempt for human dignity implied in the act
of forcing.a man into ludicrously accusing himself of
the worst treasons and indignities does not alert us
because it concerns a writer but because any Cuban com-
rade-peasant, "orker, technican or intellectual-can
also become the victim of similar violence and humilia-
tions.
We would want the Cuban revolution to return to
what made us consider it as a model in the realm of
socialism. Signers: Le Monde, Paris, 21 May 1971
rla
ibel Ale
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Carlos Franqui
Joyce Mansour
Paul Reboyrolles
g
ar
Simone de Beauvoir
Carlos Fuentes
Dacia Moraini
Alain Resnais
ando Benitez
F
Angel Gonzales
Juan Morse
Jose Revueltas
ern
-Laurent Bost
ue
J
Adriano Gonzales Lbon
Dionys Moscolo
Rossana Rossanda
acq
s
talo Calvino
Andre Gortz
Plinio Mendoza
Vincente Roio
i
ria Castoilot
i-M
Jose-Agustin Goytisolo
Istvan Meszaris
Claude Roy
a
do Claudin
F
Juan Goyti,olo
Ray Miliban
Juan Rulfo
ernan
Deutscher
r
T
Luis Goytisolo
Carlos Monsivais
Nathalie Sarraute
a
ama
r Dosse
R
Rodolfo Hinezirosa
Marco-Antonio Montes de Oca
Jean-Paul Sartre
oge
guerite Duras
M
Mervin Jones
Alberto Moravia
Jorge Somprun
ar
Einaudi
Gi
li
Monti Johnstone
Maurice Nadeau
Jean Shuster
o
u
nus Enzensberger
M
H
Monique Lange
Jose-Emilio Pacheco
Susan Sontag
ans
ag
co-Fernandez Santos
anci
F
Michel Loins
Pier-Paolo Pasollni
Lorenzo Tomabuonl
s
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Flakoll
D
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Mario Vargas Llosa
Ricardo Porro
Jose-Miguel Ullan
n
arw
Jean-Michel Fossey
Lucio Magri
Jean Prontoau
Jose Angel Valente
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