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

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