15: Suspicious Minds

In the summer of 1958, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and President Eisenhower became suspicious of Fidel Castro’s true intentions after U.S. sailors from Pawley’s childhood stomping grounds of Guantanamo were seized by Castro forces. This was followed by Raul Castro’s demand for $10,000 from United Fruit. United Fruit representatives were “considerably concerned over the general lawlessness of some of the Castro elements in the area, communist infiltration into the movement and lack of control by Fidel over his errant brother, Raul.” United Fruit’s Vice President of Cuban Operations Raines described President Fulgencio Batista’s “Cuban Army in the area as being completely ineffectual.” As it had successfully done when Guatemala’s Arbenz threatened corporate profits, United Fruit once again looked for President Eisenhower to eliminate this new thorn in Cuba.1

The job of preventing communism’s spread in the Western Hemisphere lay on the shoulders of the Colonel J.C. King who oversaw the CIA’s Western Hemisphere Division. Colonel King, years later, responded to a question from Attorney General Robert Kennedy stating that the Agency concluded Castro was unacceptable to the U.S. politically, as early as June or July 1958. Admiral Arleigh Burke commented that some in the State Department, with the exception of Under Secretary Robert Murphy, still had hopes for Castro being politically compatible in December of that year.

A declassified foreign policy document states that “in late 1958 CIA made two attempts (each approved by the Department of State) to block Castro's ascension to power. The first attempt was made in November 1958 when contact was established with Justo Carrillo and the Montecristi Group. The second attempt was made on or about the 9th of December 1958 when former Ambassador William D. Pawley, backed by the CIA Chief of Station in Havana, and Colonel King, approached Batista and proposed the establishment of a Junta to whom Batista would turn over the reins of government.”2

According to Pawley’s testimony before a Senator James O. Eastland's subcommittee on the “Communist Threat to the Caribbean,” a meeting was held at his Miami home at the end of November to discuss the Cuban problem. Present were Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William P. Snow [later an Ambassador to Burma]; former Assistant Secretary of State Henry Holland; and J.C. King of the Central Intelligence Agency. 

After presenting his credentials of expertise on Cuba to the subcommittee, Pawley expressed his belief that everything that the State Department and CIA were doing “was wrong" and he had suggested that he “go down there to get Batista to capitulate to a caretaker government unfriendly to him, but satisfactory to us, whom we could immediately recognize and give military assistance to in order that Fidel Castro not come to power, and they thought it had sufficient merit to justify my coming up with them the next day and have meetings in the State Department and in Central Intelligence Agency.” Although Secretary of State Dulles was sick “he was still available to the telephone. I was selected to go to Cuba to talk to Batista to see if I could convince him to capitulate.”3

Pawley flew to Cuba with Edna and met with a group of people to test the “political waters with trusted friends” before meeting with the Foreign Minister.4 Then on the night of December 9th, Pawley spent three hours with Batista. “I was unsuccessful in my effort, but had [Roy] Rubottom permitted me to say that ‘What I am offering you has tacit approval, sufficient government backing,’ I think Batista may have accepted it.” Those chosen to replace Batista “were Colonel Barquin, Colonel Barbonnet, General Diaz Tamayo, Bosch of the Bacardi family and one other ... all enemies of Batista. Pawley had known Batista “for 30 years and I could talk to him frankly.”5

Author Mario Lazo, a Cornell-educated Cuban lawyer and adviser to Marquez Sterling, wrote that he learned shortly after the meeting with King, Snow and Holland that Pawley’s plan was to offer Batista and his family the opportunity to live in Florida while the caretaker government served to neutralize Castro’s rallying cry. The plan also called for the recall to Washington of U.S. Ambassador Earl E.T. Smith. On November 27, 1958, Lazo revealed the plan as well as the names of the five Cuban politicians to Smith who expressed surprise.6

Pawley’s attempts to stop Castro’s ascension to power would endear him deeply to anticommunists within the administration, the CIA and FBI, and members of the Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws—most significantly Chairman James O. Eastland, Mississippi; Kenneth B. Keating, New York; and J. G. Sourwine, Counsel.7

The CIA’s Lyman B. Kirkpatrick, Jr. “didn't believe that the situation was as bad as Pawley described it and felt that the army would still be able to turn back the Castro forces.” But a few weeks later, Batista “summoned his closest cronies” to a camp “on the outskirts of Havana” for a “farewell reception and then left the country. On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro took control of Cuba. When Castro “announced his initial cabinet there was hope” in Washington “because it included some of the most respected political figures in Cuba.”8

A CIA historic review of the Cuban crisis revealed a number of internal disputes. For example, when the U.S. Army wanted to covertly collect “military intelligence under commercial cover in Havana” the CIA’s Chief of Station (COS) “took strong exception to the proposals, emphasizing the Station’s own capabilities in this area” but he “was overruled by Headquarters.” General Charles “Cabell assured the Assistant Chief of Staff for intelligence of the Army that while he was aware that Havana had objected to the Army’s proposals, the COS nonetheless had been ‘instructed’ to cooperate.”

Concern that Cuba and eventually other Caribbean countries would be lost to communism ran much deeper for Pawley than most officials in the CIA and State Department. Beyond being nicknamed “Cuba” on account of his childhood at Guantanamo and Spanish fluency, Pawley had started the country’s national airline, ran the Havana bus company, and operated nearby business investments including petroleum, oil, and hotel holdings in the Dominican Republic where he also controlled the nation’s stamp concession. North of Cuba, Pawley owned the Miami Transit Company, South Miami Coach Line, Keys Transit Company and had a Florida real estate holding company, Clifton Corp, named for his recently deceased son. Also in South Florida, Pawley in 1957 became a director for eight years of a major South Florida financial institution, First National Bank of Miami.9

Compounding Pawley’s concern was Mao’s victory over the Chinese Nationalists and his threat of invading Taiwan which weighed so heavily on the Joint Chiefs of Staff they contemplated nuking Mao’s China in 1958.10

When Castro’s rebel forces entered Havana, Batista boarded a plane after looting the Cuban banks, and fled “with about fifty immediate relatives, friends and supporters” to the Dominican Republic. Pawley in his autobiography took credit for Batista’s safe escape while noting how he had mended relationships between Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Pawley also chastised the U.S. “which in former times had been open to political refugees.”

While proud of his own role, Pawley was critical of others. He held suspicions that Batista was undermined by the “blunders and betrayals” of “Wieland and Matthews and Rubottom.” To Pawley the rise of communism in the Caribbean was “nearly as monumental a tragedy as the surrender of China to the Communists by a similar group of State Department officials, abetted by others, a decade earlier.”11

The day after Batista departed, Castro’s rebels installed Manuel Urrutia as President and Jose Mira Cardona as Prime Minister. On January 12, 1959, Henry Luce called Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to let it be known that his wife, Clare Boothe Luce, wanted to be the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, which would have given Pawley an important friend in his beloved country. But hours earlier, President Eisenhower had already picked Philip Bonsal to replace Ambassador Earl E.T. Smith. The following month, the new Cuban government modified and reinstated the 1940 Constitution, which had been suspended by General Batista seven years earlier. But by mid-February 1959, Prime Minister Cardona had resigned, and Fidel Castro had taken the reins of the Cuban government12 which he would hold firmly for nearly five decades until he fell ill in 2006.

FOOTNOTES:

1 “Taylor Report. Top Secret. Drafted on April 23 in the CIA.” Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Cuba. http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/policy/docs/frusX/166_175.html

Maxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Plowshares (New York: Norton, 1972). Pages 180-184.

“Memorandum of Conversation, Department of State, Washington, September 26, 1958, Meeting on Cuban Rebel [Raul Castro’s] Demands of Tribute on United Fruit Company.” Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI: Cuba. Page 223.

Attended by Messrs. Bump, VP (Boston), Baker VP (Washington) and Raines VP (Cuba operations) United Fruit Company. Raul Castro demanded $10,000 paid immediately.

Forty years later, after United Fruit became Chiquita Brands and faced similar problems in Columbia, it would resort to paying $1.7 million in protection money to right-wing paramilitary terrorists, in violation of U.S. law.

“Chiquita Ex-Officials Won't Face Charges.” By Laurie P. Cohen. Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2007. Page B2.

“Chiquita fined $25 mln for Colombia terror cash.” Reuters, September 17, 2007. http://www.reuters.com/article/consumerproducts-SP/idUSN1735560120070917?sp=true

According to the plea agreement, Chiquita paid more than $1.7 million starting in 1997 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia ...

2 Colonel J. C. King officially established the Branch 4 Task Force of the Western Hemisphere Division on 18 January 1960 to deal with the Cuban problem.
http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/policy/docs/frusX/166_175.html

3 Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws. Communist Threat to the Caribbean, Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-sixth Congress, Second Session, Part 10. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960). Pages 738-739.

4Pawley, Russia Is Winning, Chapter 19.

Edna and I flew down to Havana on December 7th and checked in at the Country Club, where we were able to test the latest temperature of the political waters with trusted friends. Next day, I met with Foreign Minister Gonzalo Guell and spent four hours going over the ramifications of my proposal. He recommended that I send a telegram to the Cuban President, to which I received the reply that Batista could see me the following evening at six o’clock.

5 “Executive session testimony of William D. Pawley September 2 and 8, 1960” Committee of the Judiciary’s Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws, Report (December 20, 1960). Page 739.

6 Mario Lazo, Dagger in the Heart: American Policy Failures in Cuba (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968). Pages 157-158.

7 Communist Threat to the Caribbean, Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-sixth Congress, Second Session, Part 10. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), Pages 738- 739.

Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws included: James O. Eastland, Mississippi, Chairman; Thomas J. Dodd, Connecticut, Vice Chairman; Olin D. Johnston, South Carolina; Roman L. Hruska, Nebraska; John J. McClellan, Arkansas; Everett McKinley Dirksen, Illinois; Sam J. Ervin, Jr., North Carolina; Kenneth B. Keating, New York; Norris Cotton, New Hampshire; J. G. Sourwine, Counsel; Benjamin Mandel, Director of Research.

8 Lyman B. Kirkpatrick, Jr. The Real CIA (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968). Chapter 7.

Batista’s Cuba. Latino Studies Resource, Indiana University http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuban-rebels/kirkpatrick.htm

9 National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Volume 60 (James T. White & Co. 1981). Page 215. World Who’s Who in Commerce and Industry, 1966-67. (Marquis - Who’s Who, Chicago). Page 1015. 

Transit history on Miami-Dade County: http://www.co.miami-dade.fl.us/transit/history_1930.asp.

Pawley had owned Miami Beach Railway, which he had purchased in 1941 from Florida Power & Light just as Miami Beach was becoming a training center for World War II. His railway at the time ran 43 local buses. In 1948, he acquired Miami Transit Company, and eight years later purchased South Miami Coach Line and the Keys Transit Company.

The Clifton Corporation of Miami, Founded October 18, 1957. Opencorporates.com 3/30/2012

Edward Pajon, secretary; Anita Pawley, director; Edward P. Pawley, vice president and director; William D. Pawley, agent.

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/6/14/daniel_ellsberg_leak_us_nuclear_plans 

11 Pawley, Russia Is Winning, Chapter 19

Fortunately, for Batista, I had arranged some time previously for the re-establishment of friendly relations (I acted in an unofficial capacity) between Cuba and the Dominican Republic. With the doors to the United States closed - door which in former times had been open to political refugees - Batista, together with about fifty immediate relatives, friends and supporters found refuge in the island sanctuary of Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, controversial dictator of the Dominican Republic.

Before going further, let me explain why I was to be able to exert some influence over Trujillo.

Back in 1930, when a devastating hurricane wrought havoc and suffering on the population of the Dominican Republic, I mounted a maximum effort of disaster relief from Havana through the Cuban airline I was running. Trujillo was deeply grateful.

Years later, in 1955, our paths crossed again when I went to Ciudad Trujillo to address a business group, later attending a large dinner, as guest of honor, of 400 Dominicans and Americans, evenly divided, with high officials at the head table. I sat between Trujillo and our Ambassador [William Townsend] Pheiffer. Trujillo and I fell into a conversation about mining and oil ventures which led into the subject of the need for the Dominican Republic to develop its abundant natural resources. The upshot was his invitation for me to bring American know-how to bear as an adviser on petroleum and mineral exploration.

Over the following years, results were spectacular, especially in the development of one of the most valuable nickel mines anywhere.

After Trujillo had been in exile about a week, Batista phoned me and invited me to come down to see him. I flew to Ciudad Trujillo the same day and met him at his hotel. Gonzalo Guell, who had escorted me to the exiled president’s suite, discreetly withdrew.

“Mr. President,” I said, after an exchange of the customary amenities, “I am now in a position to tell you something that I couldn’t reveal in Havana. When Minister Guell arranged our meeting, I came as the direct representative of the President. He had authorized my proposal.”

.... I am compelled to conclude that the deliberate ouster of Batista by Wieland and Matthews and Rubottom combined, is nearly as monumental a tragedy as the surrender of China to the Communists by a similar group of State Department officials, abetted by others, a decade earlier.

        We shall not be able to pay the full price in American lives and American treasure                    for these blunders and betrayals during the lifetime of the present generation. 

10 “50 Years After Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg Reveals U.S. Weighed 1958 Nuclear Strike on China over Taiwan.” Democracy Now! June 14, 2021.

12 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI: Cuba. Section: 223. U.S. Department of State. Page 354.