Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume X, Cuba, January 1961–September 1962

349. Memorandum Prepared in the Office of Current Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency⁰

Washington, July 3, 1962.

CUBAN SITUATION

I. The Castro regime is well along in the process of reorganizing its political, economic, military, and police system in the Soviet pattern.

A. In Communist terminology, Cuba is in the stage of “building socialism,” and differences in the developing Cuban institutions from those of the Soviet Bloc are either transitory or relatively minor expressions of national individuality.

B. Cubaʼs main difference from the Soviet satellites lies in the absence of an explicit Soviet commitment to defend Cuba militarily.

1. Soviet statements in this sense have thus far been vague and general.

II. A single political machine, avowedly based on Marxist-Leninist principles and interlocking in its functions and leadership with the organs of the state, is being formed at local, provincial, and national levels.

A. Called the Integrated Revolutionary Organization (ORI), it is to become the United Party of the Socialist Revolution at such time as the leaders determine that it has become sufficiently well organized and entrenched to perform the role of the single party in a Communist state.

B. It is governed by a 24-man National Directorate. The Directorate in turn is dominated by a six-man secretariat headed by Fidel and Raul Castro as first and second secretaries.

1. Raul Castro is also Deputy Premier, making him second to Fidel in both the party and government hierarchies.

C. Since last August, major government decrees have been issued in the names of both the Council of Ministers (Cabinet) and the national leadership of the ORI.

III. The split in the ORI leadership between Fidel Castro and a group of veteran Communists led by Anibal Escalante, which came into the open with Castroʼs bitter public blast against Escalante on 26 March, appears to have been not over ideological issues, but over the means and tactics for reaching agreed goals.

A. The Escalante group had been moving rapidly to secure control of the countryʼs political and governmental institutions to the exclusion of Castro followers; Castroʼs 26 March speech and the maneuvering which preceded it leave no doubt as to his position of primacy in the leadership of the revolution.

1. Escalante was expelled from the ORI National Directorate, the membership of which had been announced less than three weeks earlier, and left for Czechoslovakia.

B. Castro in his 26 March and subsequent speeches on the issue charged Escalante with “sectarianism” and with attempting to build his own power machine “divorced from the masses.” These machinations, he charged, had alienated the “masses” and threatened, by undermining public confidence in the revolution, to destroy it.

1. Escalante has subsequently become, along with “imperialism,” one of the chief whipping boys for the regimeʼs difficulties.

C. Other veteran Cuban Communists have dutifully followed Castroʼs lead in condemning Escalante, but try to imply that Escalanteʼs “harmful activities” were the result of personal faults. They are now dutifully praising Castro as “our great Marxist-Leninist leader.”

D. Castro himself has left no doubt that his objective is the construction of a Communist society in Cuba and has frequently appealed for an end to any differences between the “old” and the “new” Communists.

E. Veteran Communists hold nine of the 24 seats on the ORI National Directorate, as well as numerous key administrative jobs such as President of the Agrarian Reform Institute and Minister of Domestic Trade.

1. Blas Roca, the ranking Cuban Communist for more than 25 years, is a member of the key six-man Secretariat of the ORI National Directorate, and director of the ORI newspaper Hoy.

F. Blas Roca, in an article in Pravda on 13 June, said Escalanteʼs “harmful activities” had done such damage to the construction of a Marxist-Leninist party in Cuba, that “now we have to rebuild … and begin again from scratch.”

1. Since March, the provincial ORI directorates in at least two provinces—Matanzas and Oriente—have been thoroughly reorganized. Veteran Communists in top provincial party positions have been replaced by “new” Communists associated with the Castro brothers. Similar changes are apparently underway in municipal party units.

G. Whether or not the rivalries between the “old” and the “new” Communists will result in new top-level purges and crises cannot be clearly predicted.

1. Moscow, while probably sympathetic to the veteran Communists and distrustful of Castroʼs emotionalism and his unpredictability, has publicly supported him and condemned Escalanteʼs tactics. It has also granted Cuba important new economic support since Escalanteʼs ouster.

2. Communist veterans such as Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, President of the Agrarian Reform Institute, probably recognize that they have no substitute for Castro in his unique ability to rouse the people.

IV. A plethora of “mass organizations” have been organized during the past year to foster popular identification with the objectives of the regime, to transmit political indoctrination, and to exercise control and surveillance over the membership.

A. The Union of Young Communists, formed last April from the former Association of Rebel Youth, is described as “the political organization of all Cuban youth.”

1. It claims a membership of more than 100,000 and is charged, among other things, with “helping” the Union of Cuban Pioneers, an organization for children between six and 13 years old.

B. The Federation of Cuban Women, headed by Raul Castroʼs wife, claims a membership of more than 160,000 members.

C. The Central Organization of Workers of Revolutionary Cuba, built on the foundations of the powerful pre-Castro labor confederation, is an instrument of the state for control of organized labor.

D. The militia and the Revolutionary Defense Committees (block warden informant system) are also effective as mass organizations.

E. Other groups, such as the National Institute for Sports and Recreation, the Institute for Friendship with Peoples, and the National Tourist Industry (which arranges vacations for “superior” Cuban workers) also serve the standard purposes of Communist mass organizations.

V. There is widespread discontent in Cuba, particularly over consumer goods shortages, and resentment over the regimeʼs regimentation of the people and its authoritarianism. Active resistance is, however, confined to a few small groups and the most common attitude is hopelessness and apathy. The regime is in no danger of being toppled at this time.

A. Perhaps only a quarter of the population remains positive in its support for the regime.

1. Many of Castroʼs original followers have become disillusioned and are now in exile or in prison; some have been executed.

B. The regimeʼs large and pervasive security machinery has intimidated most of the people.

C. Active resistance is confined to small, scattered groups of guerrillas in the mountains and to more important clandestine groups in the cities, where sporadic acts of sabotage have been increasing in recent months.

D. In Matanzas province on 13 June food shortages touched off public demonstrations which led the regime on 16 June to stage an unusual show of military force in the city of Cardenas. Troops, tanks, artillery and MIG jet fighters participated in the show of force, following which President Dorticos addressed a rally.

1. These events were broadcast and televised throughout Cuba and were apparently designed to make an example of Cardenas for the rest of the country.

VI. Cuba now faces an economic crisis attributable to the confusions and dislocations caused by the drastic and rapid changeover of the economy to state control, to poor management in many enterprises, and to the sudden shift in foreign trade, formerly almost exclusively with the West, but now almost exclusively with the Sino-Soviet Bloc.

A. Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, writing in a Soviet publication late last year, claimed that 80 percent of agricultural production in Cuba is now accounted for by farms operated by or under the close control of the state and that a similar percentage of industrial production comes from state-owned plants.

B. This yearʼs just completed sugar harvest, the keystone of the Cuban economy, is not quite 5 million tons— the lowest in many years.

1. An internal Cuban government memo on the prospects for the sugar industry states that Cuba will have only about 1.4 million tons this year to export to “the capitalist market” for convertible currencies; the rest is committed to the bloc and to domestic consumption. This will not only exhaust stocks carried over from last year but there will be no carry-over to next year.

2. The memo, sent by the director of Cubaʼs Consolidated Sugar Enterprise to Minister of Industries Che Guevara, predicts poor crops for 1963 and 1964.

3. The poor sugar prospects highlight what has been one of the most immediate economic problems—the shortage of foreign exchange to finance needed imports from the Free World of foodstuffs and replacement parts for Western-made machinery. Cubaʼs main source of foreign exchange is now the 20% of the value of sugar sold to the USSR which is paid for in convertible currency, amounting to about $50 million per year.

C. The Soviet Bloc has demonstrated its willingness to extend itself considerably to help the Cuban government ease its more pressing problems.

1. On 14 May a supplementary protocol to the Cuban-Soviet trade agreement was signed, increasing total trade between the two countries for this year to $750 million—about $50 million above the level called for in the protocol signed in January.¹

2. Since Cuba has reduced export capabilities, the increase probably involves mainly an increase in Soviet shipments of needed consumer goods to Cuba, probably financed by commodity credits.

D. The Sino-Soviet Bloc is also giving considerable support to Cubaʼs long-term economic development plans.

1. Sino-Soviet Bloc long-term credits to Cuba for industrial development total at least $357 million and there are strong indications that the USSR granted Cuba an additional $100 million credit in May.

2. A $100 million Soviet credit given Cuba in June of last year was specifically for the development of Cubaʼs nickel industry. Soviet technicians have been active, though thus far apparently with only partial success, in the two Cuban nickel plants confiscated by the Castro regime in 1960, one of them, at Nicaro, US-government owned.

3. Except for light industrial plants set up by Czechoslovakia, most of the bloc projects in Cuba are not expected to become operational before 1963 or 1964 and have thus far had little impact on the economy.

E. In recent weeks Cuban leaders have repeatedly warned the Cuban people that they face a long period of austerity and hard work in the drive to “build socialism”; they note their gratitude for “the generous assistance” provided by the Soviet Bloc, but emphasize that the future depends on the Cubans themselves.

1. Castro announced on 31 May that it will take ten years to solve Cubaʼs housing problems.

2. Numerous sessions of “criticism and self-criticism” have resulted in frank admissions by Cuban leaders for past shortcomings in economic management and in assurances to the people that these “errors” are being overcome “on all fronts.”

VII. For the past three and a half years, the Castro regime has been engaged in a massive military buildup, supported by more than 30 major shipments of bloc military equipment bringing in some 70,000 tons of material for the ground and air forces.

A. The ground forces now total about 75,000.

1. The regular ground forces are supported by a large ready-reserve force of about 100,000.

B. Bloc military deliveries have included field and anti-aircraft artillery, heavy and medium tanks, rocket launchers, and thousands of modern small arms as well as military vehicles.

C. Aircraft delivered have included at least 40 MIG jet fighters, at least 20 helicopters, 12 prop trainers, and 12 transports.

D. This year the Cuban navy has received its first bloc equipment in the form of six Khronstadt-class submarine chasers and 12 motor torpedo boats.

E. Introduction of bloc equipment has made it necessary to send numerous Cubans to the bloc for training, and to bring Soviet and Czech military personnel to Cuba to supervise assembly and instruction.

F. The capabilities of the Cuban armed forces have increased steadily, and now probably surpass those of any other Latin American country.

1. During 1961, the armed forces were subjected to a thorough reorganization, as units of the former civilian militia merged with regular army units to form a more centralized body.

2. The Cuban armed forces, however, still have little offensive capability outside Cuba, and the equipment sent them by the bloc has not included some items, such as bombers, required for offensive capability.

G. The Soviet Union is not believed to have sent to Cuba any guided missiles or nuclear weapons; it is possible that some surface-to-air missiles are to be delivered to Cuba, but none are believed to have arrived thus far. On 2 July Raul Castro, who is Minister of Armed Forces, arrived in Moscow, probably seeking additional weapons.

VIII. Czech police technicians took part in the reorganization of the Cuban governmentʼs police machinery.

A. The Department of State Security within the Ministry of Interior is now the instrument for domestic control.

B. The most pervasive arm of the security apparatus is the network of Revolutionary Defense Committees. According to regime leaders, more than 100,000 of these informant groups have been organized throughout the country.

IX. Cuban foreign policies are dictated by the governmentʼs dependence on the Soviet Union.

A. Wherever possible, the Cubans have sought to avoid confronting the issue of Sino-Soviet rivalry; when pressed, however, they have adopted the Soviet position.

B. Cubaʼs voting record in the UN General Assembly clearly demonstrates its adherence to the Soviet positions.

1. On 37 roll-call votes during the first half of the 16th session of the General Assembly, Cuba voted with the Soviet Bloc 33 times; in the other four cases, one or the other abstained. On five important issues, including the vote appealing to the Soviet Union not to explode a 50-megaton bomb, Cuba was the only country voting with the ten formal members of the Soviet Bloc.

C. Cuba maintains diplomatic relations at the embassy level with all Sino-Soviet Bloc countries except East Germany; it exchanges “missions” not designated as embassies with the latter to avoid a complete rupture with Bonn.

1. The new Soviet ambassador in Havana, Aleksandr Alexseyev, appointed on 11 June, has been in Soviet intelligence work for a number of years.

2. Polish Foreign Minister Rapacki has just concluded a six-day visit to Cuba.

X. Cuba is still attempting to maintain good relations with “non-aligned” governments.

A. Cuba is to attend the Cairo meeting in July of “non-aligned” nations; its conduct at previous meetings of this group in Belgrade and in Cairo was so violently anti-US and so clearly pro-Soviet as to annoy Tito, Nasser, and Nehru.

XI. The Cuban leaders have repeatedly stated that the US holds the naval base at Guantanamo Bay illegally, and that the base will at some time revert to Cuban control.

A. The Cubans maintain that they will never use force against the base but will “at the appropriate time” demand that an “international body” rule that the base be returned to Cuba.

B. The Cuban government still obtains about $10 million annually in foreign exchange from the wages and salaries of Cubans working on the base.

C. These workers are systematically harassed by the authorities, and the area around the base has been converted into a military defense zone.

XII. The Castro regime considers that Cuba is setting the “example” which other Latin American peoples will eventually follow in destroying the “imperialist-controlled regimes” which now “oppress” them.

A. The Castro regime has provided covert financial assistance and perhaps other types of material aid to Communist or pro-Communist opposition groups in other Latin American countries.

B. It has also provided hundreds of “scholarships” annually to Latin American students for study in Cuba, and has become a leading transit point for Latin American travel to the Sino-Soviet Bloc. In addition, frequent international gatherings in Havana bring delegates from Latin America and other parts of the world to Cuba.

C. Castroʼs influence in other Latin American countries has declined steadily since he came to power.

1. The Eighth Meeting of American Foreign Ministers in Punta del Este last January effectively excluded the Castro regime from participating in the Organization of American States and subsidiary organs of the inter-American system.

2. Only five Latin American countries still maintain diplomatic relations with the Castro regime. These are: Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Bolivia. Bolivia does not have any mission in Havana, but there is a Cuban mission in La Paz.²

0. Source: Kennedy Library, Presidentʼs Office Files, Countries Series, Cuba, Security, 1962. Secret.
1. On January 9 the Soviet Union and Cuba signed a prococol in Havana relating to reciprocal goods deliveries that provided for a substantial increase in trade between the two countries as compared to 1961. (American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1962, p. 315)
2. On an otherwise blank page attached to a copy of this memorandum in the Kennedy Library, President Kennedy wrote: “Summaries of underdeveloped world. We are getting richer—Commodity prices going down—getting poorer.” (Kennedy Library, Presidentʼs Office Files)