transcript

Cuba Documentation Project

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MARCO: As we mentioned earlier Cuban leader Raul Castro says the revolution will survive another 50 years, but many Cubans are hoping for change in the year ahead, and at least when it comes to relations with the United States. President-elect Barack Obama has said he could talk directly with Cuba's leaders. And that's not a new idea. Cuba scholar Peter Kornbluh says just about every U.S. president for the last 50 years has attempted some sort of quiet talks with the Cubans. Peter Kornbluh joins us now from Ann Arbor, Michigan. This is not a chapter in American history that is well known, so tell us which U.S. presidents actually tried secret talks with Cuba and how close did any of them come to actually sitting down with Castro to hammer out a new relationship?

PETER: Well, many people think that an actual dialogue with Cuba is a, is a heresy. But in fact every president, uh, except for George W. Bush has actually engaged in some form of, of dialogue above ground or, uh, in several prominent cases clandestine, uh, diplomacy with Fidel Castro. The presidents that undertook this, uh, effort, uh, most seriously were, were John Kennedy ironically, uh, since he is well known for the Bay of Pigs and Operation Mongoose and the trade embargo against Cuba. But Kennedy, uh, in the last year of his presidency was, uh, uh, very interested in the, the, uh, potential for dialogue with, with Castro and coming to an accommodation with the Cubans. During the Ford administration, uh, Henry Kissinger initiated a, a secret diplomacy with the Cubans. And perhaps most significantly President, uh, Jimmy Carter came into office with the philosophy that we should bring our enemies as close to us as possible and engage in a dialogue, because dialogue was most important with, uh, with hostile states. This is a philosophy that Barack Obama shares.

MARCO: Right. Here is, uh, President-elect Barack Obama in a democratic debate last February, uh, making a point he made several times, uh, in last year's presidential campaign. He's responding to a question about talking with America's adversaries.
BARACK: The notion that somehow not talking to countries, uh, is punishment to them, uh, which has been the guiding, uh, diplomatic principle of this administration is ridiculous.

MARCO: Peter Kornbluh, what can President-elect Obama learn from his predecessors' unsuccessful attempts at a secret dialogue with, with Cuba in this case?

PETER: I think, uh, President Obama will learn that the quid pro quo approach that other presidents have tried, "We will lift this part of the embargo and then you will legalize political parties or you will change this or that, or we will take incremental steps over a period of time," has not worked very well. In fact, it hasn't worked at all. And I think he'll actually learn that moving quickly to set a new tone, to actually even move towards normal relations, uh, to begin with as a starting point rather than an end point, is more likely to begin a process that will lead to a, a different relationship with Cuba and changes in Cuba once the long-standing threat of, of U.S. hostility towards Cuba is removed.

MARCO: Why do you think it's in America's interest to negotiate with this tiny island that for many represents a dictatorship in the U.S. back yard?

PETER: Well, the U.S. has, uh, interests in promoting human rights and promoting democracy in Cuba, but it has its own self-national interests. Uh, we have an interest in a coherent and a smooth immigration policy, so we don't have mass migration crises from Cuba. We have counter-narcotics interests. Uh, we have environmental concerns now that it's possible that there is oil, uh, in Cuban waters and there's gonna be drilling.

MARCO: Now, Fidel Castro has indicated that there may be some room for some negotiation here, but is Cuba really interested in rapprochement with the United States?

PETER: Many people, uh, think that, that Cuba doesn't really want better relations with the United States because, uh, it helps to have the United States as an enemy, uh, for propaganda purposes. But the truth is that this history shows that Fidel Castro and his brother Raul have been interested in better relations almost from the beginning. You can go all the way back to March of 1963, uh, when Fidel Castro was negotiating with John F. Kennedy's first emissary on the issue of prisoner releases in Cuba. And Castro popped the question: if any relations were to commence between the United States and Cuba how would this actually come about and, and what would be involved? And James Donovan, the negotiator, had a very colorful answer. He said to Castro, "Are you familiar with porcupines?" Uh, and Castro finally agreed that he did understand porcupines and Donovan said, "Well, do you know how porcupines make love?" And Castro said, "No, I don't." And Donovan said, "Well, very carefully." And that is how Cuba and the United States will go about, uh, pursuing better relations in the future.

MARCO: Yeah, very carefully indeed. Well, thank you very much Peter.

PETER: Thank you.

MARCO: Cuba scholar Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande have a new article out on Washington's secret negotiations with Cuba. It's called Talking With Castro and you can find it in the upcoming issue of Cigar Aficionado.

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