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BURGLARY OR BANDITRY?
A Study of Super-power Perceptions of
THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS – OCTOBER
1962
By E. Amatei Akuete, B. Sc. (Econ.)
Hons. (Lond.), M. A. (JHU)
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Page Five (Bibliography)
Prologue
“……While your messages are critical of the United
States, they make no mention of your concern for the
introduction of secret Soviet missiles into Cuba. I
think your attention might well be directed to the
burglar rather than those who caught the burglar.”
- John F. Kennedy
“The actions of the USA with regard
to Cuba are outright banditry or, if you like, the
folly of degenerate imperialism.” - Nikita
Khrushchev
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The first quotation above is part of
the late President Kennedy’s response to a letter
sent to him by the late Bertrand Russell on October
24, 1962 while the second illustrates the view of
the late Nikita Khrushchev on U.S. actions towards
Cuba at that time. The significance of these two
excerpts, besides the literary style, lies in the
marked difference which they show regarding the
perceptions of the two leaders towards each other’s
policies and actions towards Cuba.
Since the time of the missile crisis,
several questions have been raised as to how much of
it was preconceived and how much can be attributed
to miscalculation or improvisation by the main
adversaries, then the Soviet Union and the United
States, as well as their motives and assumptions.
In order to grasp the full meaning
and effect of this crisis, it is necessary to
understand some of the root causes of the event to
facilitate analysis of the various actions that were
taken by the parties. Such an exercise demands
delving into the political antecedents in U.S. –
Cuban relations from about 1902 to 1962 with
particular reference to certain conditions and
events that led to the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
Many scholarly works have been
produced on the origins and course of the Revolution
since that event occurred and it may not be
particularly necessary to explore those details
here. Rather, in the following essay, brief
references will be made to the remote causes of the
Revolution, whilst those events having immediate
bearing on the Crisis, the special circumstances of
their occurrence, and the various measures adopted
to deal with them would receive closer examination.
In that regard, particular attention would be given
to the roles played by the protagonists in the
conflict, the impact of their measures on the course
of events and an evaluation of the conclusions that
had been drawn from the event so far.
Much to the discomfort of most
Americans, it became fashionable in the 1960s
through the 1980s to refer to the United States as
an “imperialist nation” considering its historical
record in Latin America since the turn of the
twentieth century and, in Africa and Asia after the
end of the Second World War.
Whatever the validity or otherwise of
such a view, it is generally conceded that the end
of Spanish colonization in South America by 1898
marked the beginning of United States’ dominance in
that region with Cuba as its first base. And, from
1898 to perhaps 1959 when U.S. influence in Cuba
declined, it can be said that the history of Cuba
was one of a series of political upheavals and grave
disappointments with U.S.-backed corrupt
dictatorships which ultimately led to the Revolution
of 1959.
As
pointed out earlier, several interpretations
reflecting different biases had been given to the
causes, both remote and immediate, of that
Revolution. However, it is important to note
one very important event in U.S.-Cuban relations by
the passage of the Platt Amendment of 1902. By the
provisions of the Act, the U.S. was given the right
to intervene in Cuban affairs whenever it thought
fit “for the preservation of Cuban independence and
the maintenance of a government adequate for the
protection of life, property, and individual
liberty.”
By any stretch of the imagination, this right
seriously curtailed the exercise of Cuban
sovereignty as an independent republic.
It may
also be recalled that under the terms of the Treaty
of Relations (based on the Platt Amendment) signed
in Havana on May 22, 1903 between Cuba and the U.S.,
Cuba was required to grant the U.S. “the opportunity
to lease or buy naval sites in specified areas… and
not to negotiate agreements which would impair its
independence or enable a foreign power to control
any portion of the island.”
The
powers that the provisions of the two Acts conferred
on the U.S. in its relations with Cuba proved
offensive to Cuban nationalism and there were
several protestations against the U.S. It is also
instructive to note that the late Philip Bonsal, a
distinguished career diplomat and the last U.S.
Ambassador to Cuba had cause to describe U.S. policy
on Cuba in the early 1900s as “a policy of irksome
interference.”
Despite Cuban protestations, there was no relaxation
of United States dominance in Cuban affairs and by
1934 when the Platt Amendment was repealed, Cuba had
experienced no less than three U.S. military
interventions – in 1906, 1912 and 1916.
With
the abrogation of the Platt Amendment in 1934, the
United States adopted the ‘Good Neighbor’ Policy
which, among other things, stimulated not only U.S.
exports to Cuba, but also American investment in the
island. The period between 1934 and 1956 saw
several groups of Cuban politicians who came to
power on promises of social and economic reforms
only to turn into diehard dictators, corrupt and
incompetent public officials invariably supported by
influential American business interests. By
1956, the Cuban economy was almost wholly controlled
by the United States in that American companies
controlled “80 percent of Cuba’s utilities, 90
percent of its mines and cattle ranches, nearly all
its oil, and 40 percent of Cuba’s sugar.”
No one would doubt that the
tremendous American involvement in the Cuban economy
bestowed some benefits on the Cuban people.
However, as Bonsal rightly pointed out, the impact
of American economic activities in Cuba “was
irritating, stifling, and frustrating to the rising
sense of Cuban nationalism.”
In addition to those nagging problems, it can be
said that the United States did not endear itself to
the broad mass of the Cuban people by its support of
the oppressive regime of Batista during this period.
It has been suggested by some writers
(including Theodore Draper in “Castro’s Revolution”,
(Praeger, New York, 1962) that contrary to most
Cuban accounts and Castro’s own views, the causes of
the revolution were not primarily economic. It
seems that Stillman and Pfaff, although not to the
same extent as Draper, also question the validity of
what they call “the conventional economic,
ultimately Marxist, notions of the motivation of
revolution.”
This is because “living standards in Cuba, even in
the Batista era, were well in the vanguard of the
Caribbean and of Latin America as a whole.”
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