-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.lbbs.org/ForeignPol/forpolwarchive.htm JFK and Che We now know that in August, 1961, four months after the Bay of Pigs, Che Guevara met with Richard Goodwin, President Kennedy's assistant special counsel, at an international gathering in Uruguay. Guevara had a message for Kennedy. Cuba was prepared to forswear any political alliance with the Soviet bloc, pay for confiscated American properties in trade, and consider curbing Cuba's support for leftist insurgencies in other countries. In return, the United States would cease all hostile actions against Cuba. Back in Washington, Goodwin's advice to the president was to "quietly intensify" economic pressure on Cuba. In November, Kennedy authorized Operation Mongoose, a multifaceted campaign of terrorism and harrassment against the island nation. Humorist Dave Barry has boiled the Monroe Doctrine down to three simple precepts: 1) Other nations are not allowed to mess around with the internal affairs of nations in this hemisphere. 2) But we are. 3) Ha-ha-ha. Barry further enlightens us by revealing the CIA's motto: "Proudly overthrowing Fidel Castro since 1962." ==== from: http://www.internationalen.se/sp/iv54.htm Che Guevara and the FBI sheds new light on the events immediately following the defeated U.S.-led Bay of Pigs (Playa Gir�n) invasion of Cuba in 1961. Memoranda sent by presidential adviser Richard Goodwin to President Kennedy about his meeting with Che at the Punta del Este conference of the Organisation of American States (OAS) reveal that Che, speaking as head of the Cuban delegation, sought a modus vivendi between Cuba and the United States. Goodwin viewed Che as the one Cuban official most "dedicated [to] communist views" (p. 73). One Goodwin memo states that Che told him there would never be enough internal support in Cuba for an overthrow of the revolution and that in other Latin American countries "the commies would get in through popular election" or, under dictatorships, armed revolt [p. 78] Note the use of the fanatical term "commies" by Goodwin, a prominent U.S. liberal intellectual. Che assured Goodwin that in time Cuba would have "free elections, [after] the establishment of a one-party system". Che also said the Cubans were willing to make concessions to the United States, such as agreeing to no "political alliance with the East" although this would not affect their "natural sympathies." Finally, Che thanked Goodwin and Kennedy "for the invasion [that] transformed them from an aggrieved little country to an equal" (p. 79). Goodwin's recommendations to Kennedy were to tighten the economic blockade of Cuba, form "the Caribbean security pact" to deal "with the spread of revolution," and eliminate the "peaceful coexistence which Castro is now trying to create" (p. 74). Che's internationalism in practice was viewed in Washington as even more threatening than the example of the Cuban revolution itself. It is ironic that the CIA's super spooks seemed to be in the dark about Che's whereabouts in 1965-66 when he was first in the Congo and then in Bolivia, fighting revolutions in his attempt to cripple imperialism by creating "two, three, many Vietnams." Che's efforts in the Congo against Mobutu failed, although one of the young leaders of the time, Laurent Kabila, thirty years later led the uprising that finally toppled Mobutu. Che's efforts in Bolivia also failed, in part because his presence was constantly spotted by the U.S. military's heat-seeking infrared devices originally developed by academics at the University of Michigan. Several pages of Che Guevara and the FBI reproduce the misinformed allegations by CIA informants that Che was dead, that Fidel had ordered him executed, that Che was in one or another Third World country, when all the time he was carrying the internationalist revolutionary banner to other lands. A final section of Che Guevara and the FBI shows Goodwin and his aides meeting with New York Times editor Ben Wells a year after Che's death in order to have the Times spread news about a Havana-Moscow split in an effort to undermine both the Cuban and Soviet governments. One Goodwin aide reports "We made every effort to emphasise 'Castro = Trotsky' and emphasised how seriously things must be regarded in Moscow when they applied the name Trotsky in this situation" (p. 212). Like Che, Leon Trotsky, murdered on Stalin's orders in 1940, believed that socialism could not be built in one country alone because, in the words of Ratner and Smith, "the forces of the world market would eventually restore capitalism to the Soviet Union unless the Russian revolution broke out of its isolation and was extended abroad" (p. 202). While doing a superb job in annotating these nefarious FBI/CIA documents, Ratner and Smith skate on thin ice when they say that many of Che's speeches they reproduce here from the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) "are probably the only extant copies of the speeches." A few of the speeches may indeed be the only copies in English, but most are available in Spanish and other languages, and several are available in English. Moreover, the other copies may be more reliable, since, as a "Publisher's Note" to Che Guevara and the FBI states, the FBIS transcripts "should not be regarded as accurate transcriptions" (p. xiii). Even so, it is inspiring to read Che's words here, still appropriate so many years after intellectuals and other self-styled revolutionists around the world have pronounced the ideas of guerrilla warfare and international revolutionary solidarity as dead or wrong-headed. Che Guevara and the FBI serves to remind us of the real threat U.S. corporate capital and its political representatives in Washington saw behind the so-called "evil empire" of communism during the Cold War years and now Cuba today and "international terrorism": revolution, and its consequent constraints on corporate capital's obscenely high profits made at the expense of working people world-wide. Che Guevara and the FBI also reminds us of why Che was not only feared in Washington but admired throughout most of the world. His statements resonate--revolutionaries as "motivated by deep feelings of love," the OAS as a "ministry of colonies," and, from his last public speech, "The practice of internationalism is not only a duty for the peoples who struggle for a better future, it is also an inescapable necessity." (The reviewer, Jim Cockcroft, is Visiting Professor of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at SUNY-Albany and author of several books, including the forthcoming Mexico's Hope: An Encounter with History (New York: Monthly Review Press, press, 1998), and Latinos in B�isbol (Danbury, Ct.: Franklin Watts, 1996) and Latin America: History, Politics, and U.S. Policy (Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1996). ==== Author/historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is married to the writer Richard Goodwin who worked in the White House under both Kennedy and Johnson. His experience as the investigator who uncovered the quiz show scandals of the 1950�s was captured in the recent Academy Award nominated film �Quiz Show�, directed by Robert Redford. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
