¹ See, for example, Cole, Blasier, The Hovering Giant: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Changes in Latin America (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976).Google Scholar

² Daniel M. Braddock, Counselor, Havana Embassy (for the Ambassador) to Department of State, Subject: ‘Comments and Suggestions on OCB “Outline Plan of Operations for Latin America,”’ 02 18, 1958, Despatch No. 66 611.37/2–1958, Washington: U.S. Department of State, Declassified Freedom of Information Act (cited hereafter as DS.DFIA). Also see the oft-quoted remark by the American Ambassador to Cuba, Earl T. Smith (1956–1958): ‘Whenever I asked President Batista for Cuba's vote to support the United States in the United Nations, he would instruct his Foreign Minister to have the Cuban delegation vote in accordance with the United States delegation and to give full support to the American delegation at the United Nations.’Google ScholarEarl, T. Smith, The Fourth Floor (New York, Random House, 1962), p. 55.Google Scholar

³ From Havana Embassy to Department of State, Subject: ‘Revision of Operations Plan for Latin America,’ 10 22, 1958, Despatch No. 429, 611.37/10–2258, DS.DFIA.Google Scholar

⁴ Daniel M. Braddock, Counselor, Havana Embassy (for the Ambassador) to Department of State, Subject: ‘Progress Report on OCB ‘Outline Plan of Operations for Latin America,’ 02 19, 1958, Despatch No. 661, 611.37/2–1958, DS.DFIA.Google Scholar

⁵ International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Report on Cuba 1950 (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1951), p. 138. For a summary of the principal features of the labor legislation,Google Scholar see ibid., pp. 139–40.

⁶ ibid., pp. 142, 147, 152.

⁷ Ibid., pp. 385–2.

⁸ American businessmen in Cuba viewed Batista ‘as representing a stabilizing interest’ who would control and, if necessary, repress nationalist tendencies in society. Personal Interview: U.S. Businessman (Havana Office of U.S. multinational insurance brokerage company), New York City, New York, July 14, 1975.

⁹ Phillips, R. Hart, ‘U.S. Businessmen in Cuba See Relief,’ New York Times, 04 3, 1952, p. 21.Google Scholar

¹⁰ U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign Commerce, investment in Cuba:Basic information for United States businessmen (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 07 1956), p. 19.Google Scholar

¹¹ Personal Interview: U.S. Businessman (Manager of Cuban subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Company), New York City, New York, 06 26, 1975.Google Scholar

¹² Quoted in ‘Cuban Labor Code Will Be Changed,’ New York Times, 04 27, 1954, p. 12.Google Scholar

¹³ Quoted in ibid.

¹⁴ James, O'Connor, The Origins of Socialism in Cuba (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1970), p. 146.Google Scholar

¹⁵ United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Economic Survey of Latin America 1957 (New York, Secretariat of the Economic Commission for Latin America, 1959), p. 182.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 06 2, 1975.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Personal Interview: U.S. Businessman (Havana Branch of Merrill Lynch stockbroking company), Washington, D.C., 07 31, 1975.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Hugh, Thomas, Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom (London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1971), p. 91.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Personal Correspondence: U.S. Businessman (President of U.S. Steamship Company and senior office-holder/American Chamber of Commerce in Havana), Florida, 07 1975.Google ScholarPubMed

²⁰ The Cuban Economic Research Project, A Study on Cuba (Coral Gables, Florida, University of Miami Press, 1965), p. 569.Google Scholar

²¹ Fulgencio, Batista, The Growth and Decline of the Cuban Republic (New York, The Devin–Adair Company, 1964), p. 194.Google Scholar

²² Ed, Cony and William, Giles, ‘Cuban Slowdown: Revolt, Foul Weather, Yank Recession Harry Island's U.S. Investors,’ Wall Street Journal, 02 3, 1958, pp. 1, 19.Google Scholar

²³ Robin, Blackburn, ‘The Economics of the Cuban Revolution,’ in Claudio, Véliz (ed.), Latin America and the Caribbean: A Handbook (London: Anthony Blond, 1969), p. 624.Google Scholar

²⁴ U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign Commerce, op. cit., p. 155.Google Scholar

²⁵ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Santiago de Cuba Consulate), Washington, D.C., 07 30, 1976.Google Scholar

²⁶ U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign Commerce, op. cit., p. 159.Google Scholar

²⁷ Government of Cuba, Report on Cuba (Washington, D.C.), Vol. 2, No. 5, 11 1958, p. 2.Google Scholar

²⁸ See Ed, Cony and William, Giles, op. cit., pp. 1, 19. On the tax exemptions offered by the Batista governmentGoogle Scholar, see ‘Cuban Drive Attracts New Foreign Investments,’ Journal of Commerce, 10 23, 1958, p. 11.Google Scholar

²⁹ From Havana Embassy to Department of State, Subject: ‘Revision of Operations Plan for Latin America,’ 10 22, 1958, op. cit.Google Scholar

³⁰ See Leland, L. Johnson, ‘U.S. Business Interests in Cuba and the Rise of Castro’, World Politics, No. 3 (04 1965), p. 441.Google Scholar

³¹ U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign Commerce, op. cit., pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

³² Personal Interview: U.S. Businessman (high-ranking official of Cuban Electric Company/subsidiary of American & Foreign Power), New York City, New York, 07 9, 1975.Google Scholar

³³ Personal Interview: U.S. Lawyer, New York City, New York, 07 15, 1975. This respondent's law firm represented a number of American multinational corporations with subsidiaries in Cuba during the 1940S and 1950s.Google Scholar

³⁴ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of state offical (Havana embassy), Washington, D.C., 06, 1975. ‘What they were interested in mainly was a preservation of law and order so they could carry on their business. As long as it was able to maintain law and order, business was willing to go along’Google Scholar. Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Havana Embassy), Washington, D.C., 03 13, 1975.Google Scholar

³⁵ Personal Interview: U.S. Businessman (Cuban subsidiary of Johnson & Higgins Insurance Brokerage Company), New York City, New York, 06 25, 1975.Google Scholar

³⁶ Personal Interview: U.S. Businessman (Cuban subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Company), New York City, New York, 06 26, 1975.Google Scholar

³⁷ Personal Interview: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency official (Havana field officers), Washington, D.C., 05 21, 1976.Google Scholar

³⁸ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Havana Embassy), Washington, D.C., 03 14, 1975.Google ScholarPubMed

³⁹ Personal Interview: U.S. Businessman (Moa Bay Mining Company/subsidiary of U.S. Freeport Sulphur Company), New York City, New York, 06 25, 1975.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Tex Brewer, President of Esso Standard Oil, S.A., quoted in ‘Damage to U.S. Firms Mounts as Rebels Push for Showdown Fight’, Wall Street Journal, 04 4, 1958, p. 1.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Government of Cubas, Report on Cuba (Washington, D.C.), Vol. I, No. 10, 04 1958, p. 2.Google Scholar

⁴² Quoted in ‘U.S. Business Men Eye Castro's Policies as Cuba Revolt Grows’. Wall Street Journal, 09 6, 1957, p. 3.Google Scholar

⁴³ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 06 12, 1973Google Scholar. Also see Business Week, 03 15, 1952, p. 176. Within hours of the March coup, Batista moved to reassure the Truman administration, via diplomatic note, on the question of Cuba's pro-imperial ties and obligationsGoogle Scholar. See Dean, Acheson (drafted by E. G. Miller, ARA) to William Beaulac, Havana Embassy, Department of State Telegram, March 22, 1952, Despatch No. 4118, 737.00/3–1952, DS, DFIA.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 06 15, 1973.Google ScholarPubMed

⁴⁵ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Havana Embassy), Washington, D.C., 06 12, 1973.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Alfred, Padula Jr, ‘The Fall of the Bourgeoisie: Cuba, 1959–1961’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico, 1974), pp. 66–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Frederick L. Springborn, Latin American Division, Department of the Treasury, to Duwayne, G. Clark, Counselor for Economic Affairs, Havana Embassy, 01 3, 1952, File: Cuba 0/00 General, Box 44/1, U.S. Department of the Treasury.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ State Department Memo, Subject: ‘Hazardous Financial Policies of the Cuban Government’, 12 23, 1955, File: Cuba 0/00 General, Box 44/I, U.S. Department of the Treasury.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Havana Embassy), Washington, D.C., 05 19, 1976. At no point did the congressional branch of the U.S. government contest executive branch control over the policymaking process. One Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff member recollected the appearance of divisions over what kind of relationship with the military dictatorship would best serve U.S. political and economic interests on the island: ‘There was a significant fragment of Congress that was anti-Batista, and a significant fragment of Congress that was pro-Batista. Some of the anti-Batista people were also pro-Castro. But it was not a large issue in Congress in those years’Google Scholar. Personal Interview: U.S. Congress (Professional Staff member/Senate Foreign Relations Committee), Washington, D.C., 09 18, 1973. Similarly, a State Department official working on the Cuban Desk between 1955 and 1958 observed: ‘There was very little Congressional pressure on the executive branch to do something about Batista’Google ScholarPubMed. Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 06 2, 1975.Google ScholarPubMed

⁵⁰ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Havana Embassy), Washington, D.C., 05 19, 1976. Gardner was a wealthy businessman, widely believed to have received his ambassadorial appointment as a ‘payoff’ for major financial contributions to the 1952 Republican Party presidential campaign. Gardner's assessment of Batista was encapsulated in testimony before a U.S. congressional subcommittee: ‘…Batista had always leaned toward the United States. I don't think we ever had a better friend’. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security LawsGoogle ScholarPubMed, Communist Threat to the United States Through the Caribbean, Part 9, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, 08 27, 29, 30, 1960 (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), p. 665.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Havana Embassy), Washington, D.C., 05 19, 1976.Google Scholar

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ Personal Correspondence: U.S. Department of State official (Santiago de Cuba Consulate), Florida, 03 29, 1975.Google ScholarPubMed

⁵⁴ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Santiago de Cuba Consulate), Washington, D.C., 07 30, 1976.Google ScholarPubMed

⁵⁵ Robert, D. Murphy, Diploma: Among Warriors (New York, Doubleday & Anchor, 1964), p. 369.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Herbert, L. Matthews, ‘Situation in Cuba Found Worsening: Batista Foes Gain’, New York Times, 06 16, 1957, p. 26.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Herbert, L. Matthews, ‘Populace in Revolt in Santiago de Cuba’, New York Times, 06 10, 1957, p. 1.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Alfred, Padula Jr, op. cit., p. 101.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ See Herbert, Matthews, ‘Situation in Cuba Found Worsening: Batista Foes Gain’, op. cit., p. 26. On the scope of the stepped-up repression by the dictatorial regimeGoogle Scholar, see Phillips, R. Hart, Cuba: Island of Paradox (New York, McDowell Obolensky, 1959), p. 316: ‘…killings and torture were going on in every town on the island, especially in Oriente Province’.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Michael, T. Klare, War Without End (New York, Vintage Books, 1972), p. 278.Google Scholar

⁶¹ From Havana Embassy to Department of State, Subject: ‘Revision of Operations Plan for Latin America’, 10 22, 1958, op. cit.Google Scholar

⁶² See Hugh, Thomas, op. cit., pp. 946–7;Google ScholarLouis, A. Pérez Jr, Army Politics in Cuba, 1898–1956 (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1976), pp. 1601.Google Scholar

⁶³ U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Study Mission in the Caribbean Area December 1957, Part I, 85th Congress, 2nd Session, Committee Print, 01 20, 1958 (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1958), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Review of Foreign Policy 1958, Part I, 85th Congress, 2nd Session, 1958 (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1958), pp. 361–2.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Colonel Thomas B. Hanford, Director, White House, Regional Office, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Security Affairs, in U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Mutual Security Act of 1958, 85th Congress, 2nd Session, 03 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 28, 31, 1958 (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1958), p. 499.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 07 5, 1973. Individual congressmen also voiced support for an arms embargo of the Batista government, but there is no evidence to suggest that their opposition to Batista had any substantive impact on the ultimate executive branch decision.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ The arms embargo decision had important repercussions within the U.S. business community in Cuba, forcing American investors located in Havana to reassess their dismissal of the guerrilla threat. Subsequently, this segment became the most active capitalist class supporters of political confrontation with the Castro movement. Personal Interview: U.S. Businessman (Havana Office of U.S. multinational insurance brokerage company), New York City, New York, 07 14, 1975Google Scholar. See also Earl, T. Smith, op. cit., pp. 161–2. The lack of precise data on the relationship between the inter- and intra-corporate conflict and the policymaking process makes it impossible to measure the impact or influence of different capitalist fractions on the trajectory of decision-making within the executive branch. However, it is clear that, confronted with the very real possibility of the ‘break-up’ of the repressive apparatus of the Batista state, Washington moved with as much speed as possible to mobilize the resources at its command and fashion a strategy premised, in large part, on the immediate and long-term interests of foreign capital accumulation in Cuba.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 06 2, 1975. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ‘was preoccupied with other parts of the world…’Google ScholarPubMedRobert, C. Hill interview, New Hampshire, 10 1972,Google ScholarThe Eisenhower Oral History Collection, Columbia University Library, New York City, New York, pp. 100–1. In late 1957, Hill, the newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, contends that he undertook a series of unsuccessful attempts to get executive branch officials to devise a coherent anti-Castro policy. He recalled a meeting with Secretary of State Dulles who dismissed his characterization of Castro as pro-communist and heavily influenced by Moscow as ‘utter nonsense, and keep in mind his brother Allen Dulles was director of the CIA, so I made no headway there’Google Scholar. Ibid.

⁶⁹ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 06 14, 1973.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 06 12, 1973.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Havana Embassy), Washington, D.C., 08 23, 1978.Google Scholar

⁷² Havana, Embassy (Ambassador Earl T. Smith) to Department of State, Subject:Google Scholar‘Policy Paper on Cuba’, 08 8, 1958, 611.37/8–858, U.S. DS, DFIA.Google Scholar

⁷³ Personal Interviewmphas: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 06 2, 1975.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 07 11, 1973.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official, Washington, D.C., 07 5, 1973.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter, A. to President Eisenhower, Subject: ‘Cuba’, 12 23, 1958, 737.00/32–2358, U.S. DS, DFIA. (my emphasis)Google Scholar. Also see Dwight, D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956–1961 (New York, Doubleday & Company, 1965), p. 521.Google Scholar A number of interpretations have argued that U.S. policy towards the nationalist opposition to Batista was basically non-antagonistic, moving from an initial position of ambiguity and indecisiveness to one that exhibited a great deal of ‘flexibility’ in dealing with the rurally-based guerrilla leadership. The proponents of this argument, however, fail to distinguish between different moments in the internal conflict (e.g. Washington's evolving perception of the guerrilla ‘threat’) and, therefore, are unable to account adaquately for the expanded scope and depth of U.S. government efforts to deny political power to the Castro forces in late 1958. See, for example, Cole, Blasier, op. cit., pp. 234, 236.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter, A. to President Eisenhower, Subject: ‘Cuba’, 12 23, 1958Google Scholar, op. cit.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ From Havana Embassy to Department of State, Subject: ‘Revision of Operations Plan for Latin America’, 10 22, 1958, op. cit. ‘…the evidence indicates that… the United States military mission proposed to Batista the creation of a counterinsurgency elite corp to fight Castro… Batista refused because he feared that an elite corps could deliver a coup against his regime’Google Scholar. Harold, R. Aaron, ‘The Seizure of Political Power in Cuba, 1956–1959’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 1964), p. 91. This assertion was based on an interview by the author with a U.S. military official stationed in Havana during this period.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Communist Threat to the United States through the Caribbean, Part 9, op. cit., p. 687.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter, A. to President Eisenhower, Subject: ‘Cuba’ 12 23, 1958, op. cit. (my emphasis). Herter also asserted that ‘a degree of anti-American sentiment’ was one of the ‘characteristics of the Castro movement’Google Scholar. Ibid.

⁸¹ U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws, Communist Threat to the United States through the Caribbean, Part 10, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, 09 2 and 8, 1960 (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), p. 739.Google Scholar

⁸² Mario, Lazo, Dagger in the Heart: American Foreign Policy Failures in Cuba (Santa Monica, California, Fidelis Publishers, 1968), p. 174. In testimony before a U.S. congressional subcommittee in 1961, Pawley identified some of the individuals chosen to form an interim government: ‘The men we had selected and that had been approved and that I could tell Batista, were Colonel Barquin, Colonel Borbonnet, General Diaz Tamayo, Bosch of the Bacardi family…’Google ScholarU.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Communist Threat to the United States through the Caribbean, Part 10, op. cit., p. 739.Google Scholar

⁸³ On Pawley's mission to Cuba, his meeting with Batista, and the latter's categorical rejection of the ‘unofficial’ proposal, see John, Dorschner and Roberto, Fabricio, The Winds of December (New York, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980), pp. 157–9.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Personal Interview: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency official, Washington, D.C.,01 7, 1976.Google ScholarPubMed

⁸⁵ Personal Interview: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency official (Havana field officer)s, Washington, D.C., 05 21, 1976.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ General Charles Cabell interview, Arlington, , Virginia, , 05 22, 1965, The Dulles Oral History Collection, op. cit., p. 17.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Personal Interview: U.S. Department of State official (Havana Embassy), Washington, D.C., 05 21, 1976.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Personal Interview: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency official (Havana field officer), Washington, D.C., 05 21, 1976Google Scholar. See also David, A. Phillips, The Night Watch (New York, Atheneum Publishers, 1977), p. 64.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter, A. to President Eisenhower, Subject: ‘Cuba’, 12 23, 1958, op. cit.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Richard Bissell interview, East, Hartford, Conn., 09 7, 1966, The Dulles Oral History Collection, op. cit., p. 51.Google Scholar

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⁹³ Abraham, F. Lowenthal, ‘“Liberal”, “Radical”, and “Bureaucratic” Perspectives on U.S. Latin American Policy: The Alliance for Progress in Retrospect’, in Julio, Cotler and Richard, R. Fagen (eds.), Latin America & the United States: The Changing Political Realities (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 227.Google Scholar