On a certain occasion President Raúl Castro stated, “We have been capable of making history but not of writing it.” The excellent book by Elier Ramírez and Esteban Morales, De la confrontación a los intentos de “normalización” (From confrontation to attempts at “normalization”) published by Editorial de Ciencias Sociales in 2014, constitutes an important step in filling this void.
The book, based on knowledge of U.S. and Cuban secondary sources, as well as a rich sample of U.S. documents and, exclusively, numerous Cuban documents, analyzes the attempts at normalization during the Presidencies of Gerald Ford (1974-1977) and Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). Both were the only episodes – prior to Obama’s Presidency – in which there was a serious attempt to normalize relations between the U.S. and Cuba. There was also an incipient attempt under Kennedy, which Ramírez and Morales describe in the first chapter of the book.
Under both Ford and Carter, Africa was, as the authors well explain, “the insurmountable obstacle” preventing normalization between the U.S. and Cuba. Negotiations were advancing in 1975, when Cuban troops arrived in Angola in defiance of the USSR – opposed to such a move – and challenged South Africa, which had invaded Angola and whose troops were approaching Luanda, Challenging, at the same time, the U.S. which was in shameless cahoots with Pretoria. Fidel decided to intervene because he knew that the victory of the Axis of Evil - Washington and Pretoria - would have meant the victory of apartheid and the strengthening of white rule over the peoples of Southern Africa. Fifteen years later, in an unusual outburst of honesty, Henry Kissinger, U.S. Secretary of State in 1975, recognized in the last volume of his memoirs that Cuba had acted on her own initiative, presenting the USSR with a fait accompli. Fidel, Kissinger said, “was probably the most genuine revolutionary leader then in power.”
Cuba saved Angola and the U.S. retaliated by stopping short the talks on normalizing relations. These were later resumed by Carter. Ramírez and Morales skillfully outline the talks between U.S. and Cuban officials in 1977-1978, using both Cuban and U.S. documents of the time, an exceptional feat that no other historian studying this episode has achieved, including the author of this article.
Once again, Africa was “the insurmountable obstacle.” In late 1977, Cuban troops arrived in Ethiopia to help defeat the Somali invasion. What followed appears incongruous: the Carter administration lambasted Cuba for sending troops to stop an aggressor that aimed to dismember Ethiopia, grossly violating all norms of international law. However, as historian Nancy Mitchell demonstrated in a flawless book, which should be published in Cuba, Carter himself, the “good” president, had encouraged the Somali aggression against Ethiopia due to a cynical calculation, rooted in the mentality of the Cold War: the United States had lost its alliance with Ethiopia, whose government sympathized with the socialist bloc, and therefore had to seek an alliance with Somalia. The way to achieve this was by assisting Somali President Siad Barre in his aggressive efforts. Years later, the same Carter told Nancy Mitchell, “Morally we chose the wrong side because we supported Siad Barre, who invaded Ethiopia.” (Nancy Mitchell recorded the conversation with Carter, which lasted more than two hours, and I had the privilege of hearing the recording).
But beyond Ethiopia, the insurmountable obstacle was Angola. Carter demanded that Cuban troops leave the country. Even the CIA acknowledged that the presence of Cuban troops was “necessary to preserve Angolan independence,” threatened by apartheid South Africa, but that was not enough to satisfy the imperial hubris of Washington. The United States, which stationed hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the countries of Western Europe to defend itself against a theoretical Soviet threat, wouldn’t tolerate Angola using Cuban troops to defend itself from a very real threat from South Africa. As Fidel rightfully told two of Carter’s envoys in December 1978, the United States “seems to be saying that there are two laws, two sets of rules and two kinds of logic, one for the U.S. and one for other countries,” a sad truth that originated under Thomas Jefferson and continues today.
Cuba rejected Carter’s blackmail, setting as a condition for normalization the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. Carter’s pressuring would not change “the firm and categorical position of Cuba” Fidel’s point man in Angola, Jorge Risquet, told President Agostinho Neto. “The Cuban presence in Angola concerns only our two countries and cannot be the object of any negotiation between Cuba and the United States.” When I read these words I can not help but think of the huge debt of the Angolan people and their government to Cuba. I also think of Risquet, who always insisted that the policy toward Angola was devised by Fidel and Raúl, he was just following their instructions. But even a great politician needs those who are capable of implementing their orders on the ground. For this, there were men such as Polo Cintra Frías in the military and Risquet in the political field. I would also like to share a personal consideration: Risquet was a brother to me, for over two decades I was able to admire the wisdom, intelligence and honesty of this magnificent revolutionary, so dedicated to the cause and its leaders, Fidel and Raúl Castro.
The book by Ramírez and Morales is one of the most important works on the foreign policy of the Cuban Revolution published in recent decades both in Cuba and beyond. The authors masterfully provide us with irrefutable proof of the dignity and generosity of Cuban foreign policy. Their analysis is clear, rigorous and based on facts.
Piero Gleijeses is a corresponding member of the Cuban Academy of History and professor of U.S. foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, Washington.
