Authors: Jon Lee Anderson
The secret conclaves had coincided with the arrival of the new American ambassador, Philip Bonsal, who made the optimistic appraisal that Castro “could be handled.” The military-intelligence establishment thought otherwise, and on March 10, Eisenhower’s National Security Council discussed the possibility of “bringing another government to power in Cuba.”
Whether or not Fidel was a Communist, most American political analysts now felt he was a loose cannon who had to be reined in before he could do real damage in Cuba and the region. Some politically moderate Latin American leaders who had previously supported him lent their voices to this growing consensus; both José Figueres, the Costa Rican president, and Rómulo Betancourt, in Venezuela, confided their suspicions to the Americans that the Communists already had a firm grip in most of the vital areas in Cuba. All the while, however, Fidel continued his vigorous public denials of Communist inclinations. He invited hundreds of reporters to Havana in a lavish public relations campaign dubbed Operation Truth, which was aimed at countering negative publicity.
There was a lot of negative publicity to counter. Fidel had recently “intervened” with the Cuban branch of the International Telephone and Telegraph Company in order to “investigate irregularities in its operations,” as Che had urged in his speech in January. He had publicly excoriated the visiting President Figueres, a wartime ally, for suggesting that Cuba should side with the United States in the “Cold War confrontation,” accusing him of “imperialistic tendencies.” He had made wild-sounding predictions about the Cuban economy, going so far as to claim that within a few years, Cuba’s
standard of living would surpass that of the United States. The revolutionary tribunals had continued unabated, and he had caused an international scandal by ordering the retrial of forty-four Batista airmen who had been acquitted of bombing civilians. The tribunals were alienating the influential Cuban Catholic community, and Catholic militants who had been active supporters of the bid to oust Batista were becoming nervous about the revolution’s leftward slide. The universities were alarmed about Fidel’s apparent lack of regard for the hallowed tradition of academic autonomy, and a crackdown on press freedoms seemed likely.
Plans were under way to create a “revolutionary” press that would cast Fidel’s actions in a more favorble light. Jorge Ricardo Masetti, the Argentine journalist who had become so enamored of Cuba’s revolution, was back in Havana, along with his Uruguayan counterpart, Carlos María Gutiérrez.
*
Both men held talks with Che over the creation of an “independent” international Cuban news agency, to be modeled on Perón’s ill-fated Agencia Latina. Che’s objective, like Perón’s, was to break free of such “Yankee capitalist” news monopolies as the AP and UPI. In a few months’ time—with $100,000 from unused July 26 bonds collected during the war—Cuba’s own Prensa Latina was founded. Masetti became the first editor in chief, and an impressive roster of correspondents around the world was assembled. Within a few months, another sierra convert, the American journalist Robert Taber, was also helping out the revolution’s propaganda effort through the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, a pro-Castro U.S. lobbying group that was supported by liberal-left intellectuals such as Carleton Beals, C. Wright Mills, I. F. Stone, and Allen Ginsberg.
Along with his practical—and, at times, Machiavellian—approach to problem solving, Fidel had begun to exhibit an unsettling penchant for embracing bizarre economic schemes that would “solve” Cuba’s problems. He had dreamed up a project to drain the Ciénaga de Zapáta, a vast swamp delta on the southern coast, and open it to rice farming. More important, his impolitic remarks about increasing Cuba’s sugar harvest as a way to boost employment had already contributed to a fall in world sugar prices as futures investors bet on an impending market glut. In fact, the 1959 harvest, or
zafra
, was larger than usual, producing 5.8 million tons.
Some of Fidel’s more outlandish proposals may have been born of simple desperation. Batista-era corruption, last-minute theft, and capital flight had stripped Cuba’s treasury, leaving little more than $1 million in
reserves, a public debt of $1.2 billion, and a budgetary deficit of $800 million. The million-member-strong Cuban labor union, the Confederación de Trabajadores Cubanos (CTC), once a major Communist bastion, had been co-opted by Batista, but Fidel was beginning to engineer a purge under the newly appointed union leader, David Salvador. The constant reminders of imminent agrarian reform were making landowners and agricultural investors nervous, and capital investment began grinding to a halt. In March, Fidel pushed through a bill that lowered rents by 50 percent and expropriated vacant land. Tariffs were imposed on a range of imported luxury goods; laid-off workers began striking for reinstatement, and other workers demanded pay raises. Increasingly uncertain about the future, a growing stream of affluent and middle-class Cubans began packing up to leave for new lives abroad. Most of them went to that venerable haven of Cuban exiles only ninety miles away, Miami.
On April 14, the American deputy chief of mission in Havana, Daniel Braddock, sent to Washington a new confidential “action copy” dispatch, “Growth of Communism in Cuba.” He warned that since the fall of Batista, the PSP had “emerged from hiding to achieve a semi-legal status which will probably become fully legal as soon as political parties register. The Party has increased its membership during these past three months by at least 3,000 and is still growing. Offices have been opened in every section of Habana and in most of the towns in the interior.” The cable went on to warn that the Cuban armed forces were a primary target of the Communist infiltration:
La Cabaña appears to be the main Communist center, and its Commander, Che
GUEVARA
, is the most important figure whose name is linked to Communism. Guevara is definitely a Marxist if not a Communist. Political indoctrination courses have been instituted among the soldiers under his command at La Cabaña. Material used in these courses, some of which the Embassy has seen, definitely follows the Communist line. Guevara enjoys great influence with Fidel
CASTRO
and even more with the Commander in chief of the Armed Forces, Commander Raúl
CASTRO
, who is believed to share the same political views as Che Guevara.
Orlando Borrego recalled that he was typical of many of the men at La Cabaña at the time, young former rebels with little ideological education. “From the political perspective,” Borrego said, “during those first months we were very confused. The rumors had begun that the revolution was going to be socialist. This was discussed among the troops and I was one of those who said, ‘No, it can’t be.’ And what
was
socialism, anyway? I
didn’t understand. The widespread impression was that Communism was bad. We wanted a revolution that was just, that was honorable, that would serve the interests of the nation and all of that, but would have nothing to do with Communism. But we also said, ‘Well, if Che and Fidel are Communists, then we are too,’ but it was out of a sense of devotion to them, not because of any ideological position.”
Borrego served as a judge in the trial of a former police chief, General Hernando Hernández. During the trial, the defendant gave him a copy of Boris Pasternak’s book
Doctor Zhivago
. Borrego had no idea who Pasternak was, and, in all innocence, he showed the book to Che. “Che looked at it and ‘Ha!’ he began to laugh,” Borrego recalled. “‘What an ignoramus you are,’ he said. He explained to me who Pasternak was and what he revealed about the Stalin era. That man had made me the gift intentionally, to see if I would comprehend all that was negative about the Soviet Union.”
“Until that time Che had undertaken little direct political orientation—in the sense of the socialist idea—with us,” Borrego said. “But around February or March, he began to have meetings with us, the officers, in a little hall there in La Cabaña. They were political orientation talks. He didn’t call them that, but that’s what they were.” Che placed special emphasis on the idea that the seizure of power was not the most important revolutionary goal. “He told us that the most difficult and complex task was beginning at that moment,” Borrego said. “It was the stage where a distinct society would be built. He didn’t speak of Communism, or of socialism, but he began to introduce, from a historical perspective, revolutionary ideas on an international scale. One day, in front of a map, he explained about the Soviet Union, the countries of the socialist bloc, what role Lenin had played, and he began to transmit to us Lenin’s ideas, saying that there were valuable lessons to be learned.” Borrego said that he and his comrades left the seminar that day saying to one another, “This reeks of Communism.” But by now, they were more intrigued than frightened by the new ideas.
Once Che had broken the ice among his junior officers, Armando Acosta, his regimental deputy, took over the job of indocrination. “He was very clever, very intelligent in the way he explained things to us,” Borrego recalled. “He clarified things in revolutionary terminology without talking about Communism, stressing above all the need for unity between revolutionaries, that there could be no political divisions.”Acosta’s talks and Borrego’s close daily working contact with Che soon gave him “an ideology.” The real moment of truth for him came in April, when a wealthy Cuban businessman, his employer before he had joined the war, offered him a well-paying job in Guatemala. Tempted, Borrego told Che about the offer and asked his advice. Che told Borrego to think seriously about his priorities
because he was playing a vital role in the revolution. He should mull the offer over for a few days and then come back when he had made up his mind. Borrego did as he was told and decided to stay in Cuba. “Che had established a great deal of influence over me very quickly,” Borrego said.
Orlando Borrego would become one of Che’s most trusted personal friends and protégés. He was part of a loyal coterie of disciples who were followers of “Che” rather than of any political credo. By the spring of 1959, Che had begun to gather several such men around him. Yet, far from being sectarian, he dealt respectfully with many of the defeated former army officers at La Cabaña during the transition to the Rebel Army’s control—even as he sent others to die before the firing squad. That Che, an ideologically committed man so close to Fidel, inspired such an unusual degree of loyalty among his soldiers was troubling to the Americans. He was a dangerous foe indeed. And, as the cables from the embassy in Havana show, they knew this very early in 1959.
Che Guevara had emerged as a figure of special attention in Moscow also. In January 1959, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. sent an undercover agent to Havana to take soundings and explore the possibility of establishing relations with the new regime. His first point of contact, it was agreed, should be with Che.
The agent’s name was Alexandr Alexiev. Tall, bespectacled, and gregarious, with a strong, angular face, Alexiev was a forty-five-year-old KGB agent working under diplomatic cover at the Soviet embassy in Buenos Aires when he was recalled to Moscow in August 1958. Early in his intelligence career he had served in the Spanish Civil War and in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. He specialized in Latin America.
In 1957, when he was still in Argentina, Alexiev had begun hearing about Che from friends at Buenos Aires University. “They were revolutionaries,” he recalled, “and were always talking about Che with pride. Their compatriot was fighting with Fidel.” Alexiev was suspicious about Fidel’s true political inclinations and, he admitted later, had not given Cuba his full attention. “I didn’t think much about the Cuban revolution. I thought it would be like any other [bourgeois] Latin American revolution. I wasn’t sure it was a very serious thing.”
Once he was back in Moscow, Alexiev was named head of the Latin America Department of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. He took up his post in December 1958. Within weeks of the Cuban revolutionary victory and Moscow’s recognition of the new regime,
his boss, Yuri Zhukov, who was in direct contact with Premier Nikita Khrushchev, came to see him. “Alexandr, I think you should travel and see what kind of revolution this is,” Zhukov said. “It seems to be anti-American and it seems worthwhile that one of you go there. You are the best candidate because you know Spanish. You were in Argentina, Che is Argentine, and there are ways to establish contacts.”
Yuri Paporov, who had been working in the same department as Alexiev since his own recall from Mexico a year earlier, remembered his colleague’s reaction: “He didn’t want to go. He said he didn’t want to talk to those bourgeois revolutionaries.” Paporov advised Alexiev to put aside his reservations because it would be “good for his career,” an argument that Alexiev found convincing. A request for a visa was channeled through the Cuban embassy in Mexico City. It was a journalistic visa, since no actual diplomatic links had been established between Cuba and the Soviet Union.
In late January, some high-ranking Cuban PSP officials arrived in Moscow. The delegates, headed by Juan Marinello and Severo Aguirre, had officially come for a Communist Party congress, but their journey had another purpose as well. They were to try to convince the Kremlin that Cuba’s revolution was an opportunity not to be missed. Their praise left Alexiev unmoved, however. He attributed it to the euphoria they felt after years of oppression under Batista.
As he waited for his visa, Alexiev spent his time monitoring Cuban news reports and, to bolster his false résumé, making favorable broadcasts about Cuba’s revolution over Radio Moscow’s Spanish-language Latin America service. As time passed, his cynicism evaporated, and he began to experience some of the enthusiasm he had felt as an eighteen-year-old in the embattled Spanish Republic twenty years earlier. Still his Cuban visa didn’t come. The months dragged by: spring turned into summer, and Alexiev was still waiting.