244. Editorial Note
President Johnson commented briefly on Cuban relations during a long telephone call that he placed to Senator Russell on February 26, 1964. He said, in part: “Tom Mann thinks weʼre stronger in the Hemisphere today than we were 90 days ago, because of what weʼve done in Panama and what weʼve done in Cuba. He thinks weʼre in worse shape than weʼve been in 20 years and that the Hemisphere is in a very dangerous position. But he thinks that these two little insignificant moves have let them know that ‘donʼt tread on me.’ And he thought they needed to know that pretty much.”
Later in the conversation Johnson mentioned that Castro had talked during one of his interviews about wanting to turn the water back on at Guantanamo. Johnson summarized Castroʼs position as being “that heʼs not going to cause any real trouble and he wants Guantanamo, but he wants it peacefully.” The President tied this to “when we fired 500 the first damned day, every one of them went to bellyaching to him that they lost their jobs.”
In concluding about Cuba, Johnson said that Guantanamo had had “over 300 known subversives” and that he had “told the Admiral down there” that he would “try to do something about it.” The President then said: “But I give up. Whenever I hit the Department of Defense or the Department of State, itʼs like a man trying to punch his way through a big thick mattress. You just canʼt do it. You hit it and the damned thing gives when you hit—the bed bounces back out.” (Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of telephone conversation between President Johnson and Richard Russell, February 26, 1964, 12:10 p.m., Tape F64.14, Side B, PNO 1) The portions of the conversation printed here were prepared in the Office of the Historian specifically for this volume.