The Oct. 26 release of files related to the assassination of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy shed light on brazen terror plots hatched by the Central Intelligence Agency against the Cuban Revolution. The CIA’s plans included potential attacks on the island as well as in cities throughout the United States. Their intention was to blame Fidel Castro alongside Cuba’s new revolutionary government, and their aim was to build a pretext for regime change.
Taken from the files, in a document summarizing the CIA’s covert Operation Mongoose:
“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on the lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of a Cuban agent and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.”
Another plot recommended the use of biological weapons aimed at starving Cubans into an uprising. Falsely assuming the unpopularity of the Revolution among the Cuban people, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy “said that he had no worries about any such sabotage which could clearly be made to appear as the result of local Cuban disaffection or of a natural disaster, but that we must avoid external activities such as the release of chemicals, etc. unless they could be completely covered up,” the document reads.
CIA plots to assassinate Fidel are already well known, but the newly declassified information also reveals how preparations were in place to incentivize the murder of Cuban communists through a program known as “Operation Bounty.” The plan established a “system of financial rewards, commensurate with position and stature, for killing or delivering alive known communists.”
Another document described how false attribution of attacks and sabotage could set the stage for intervention: “if we announced the incident going in; that we were moving in to restore order and hold free elections and that we would withdraw from Cuba as soon as the new government advised that they had the capability to maintain order without further assistance.… ”
Pro-imperialist apologists in the mainstream media offered the explanation that these plots originated from a bygone period of CIA operations, “an era of Cold War intrigue … when assassinations and clandestine plots were a matter of tradecraft,” as suggested by one New York Times piece.
For Cuba and its socialist revolution, which has proudly carried on for nearly the last 60 years, nearly three decades after the overthrow of the Soviet Union, the strategic aims of the U.S. remain the same. Heroes of Cuba’s state security operations, such as the Cuban Five, Raúl Capote, and others have infiltrated more recent plots against Cuba that highlight the need for Cuba to remain vigilant.
Trump administration’s pretext for aggression towards Cuba
Since the election of Donald Trump, U.S.-Cuban relations have been seriously damaged. In June, Trump made a declaration in Miami surrounded by the most rabid reactionaries of Cuba’s right-wing. He delivered a blaring anti-communist screed announcing new travel restrictions and his intention to continue the criminal U.S. blockade of the island.
Beginning in February and again in the news more recently, baseless allegations of sonic attacks against U.S. diplomats in Havana have once again placed hostilities against Cuba in the forefront of the Trump administration’s foreign policy agenda. At a time when the majority of Americans support ending the blockade, 73 percent according to a 2016 Pew Research poll, the Trump administration is choosing to concoct myths of Cuban “hardliners” seeking vengeance to try and sway the opinion of the American public.
An article titled “Alleged Sonic Attacks” from Cuba’s Granma newspaper, the official outlet of the Cuban Communist Party, reveals partial conclusions of Cuba’s thorough investigation, reporting, “There was no evidence to indicate the occurrence of the alleged sonic attacks.”
The article reminds readers that Cuba “has been the direct target of constant attacks of all kinds, backed by different U.S. administrations that practiced state terrorism. … The sabotage of the La Coubre freighter and the El Encanto store, the mercenary attack on Playa Girón, the blowing up of a Cuban civil aircraft mid-flight, and the bombings in different hotels and tourist centers of the country, among many other aggressions, marked the suffering of an entire people, with a total of 3,478 fatalities and 2,099 physically disabled for life.”
Thousands of pages of the JFK files are still yet to be released, with Trump allowing the CIA and FBI to scour the remaining documents for information that could be interpreted as threatening to “national security.” What other astounding crimes of the U.S. government will be revealed?
The genocidal character of U.S. imperialism is by no means secret. From information already available it is known that the “CIA engineered or assisted coups in Iran, Guatemala, Congo, Iraq, Indonesia, Greece, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and more, and brought to power regimes that used extreme brutality in the interests of U.S. corporations and local elites.
Organized in 1947, the agency’s first coup was in newly independent Syria just two years later. Its bloody trail confirms that the CIA is the deadliest terrorist organization in the world, bar none.”
Every condemnation from the Trump administration of Cuba, Venezuela, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Syria, Iran, and so on has potential deadly implications for the people of those countries.
Cuba resists
Both overt and covert terror has failed to achieve counter-revolution in Cuba. Despite U.S. efforts, world public opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of Cuba’s sovereignty and independence. A Nov. 1 vote at the United Nations General Assembly marked the 26th consecutive year that the body has condemned the criminal U.S. blockade. One hundred ninety-one countries, with only the U.S. and Israel opposed, extended a vote of solidarity to Cuba.
¡Cuba Si, Bloqueo No!
