http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/marzo/juev18/declaration.html
Havana. March 18, 2010
Cuba notes 50th anniversary of U.S. declaration of unilateral war
HAVANA, March17.-In the face of another hostile media campaign directed
by Washington, Cuba recalls today the 50th anniversary of former U.S. President
Dwight Eisenhower's executive order approving covert and terrorist action
against the island.
Called the Program of Covert Action against the Castro Regime, the
document signed by Eisenhower gave the official green light to all kinds of
illegal operations aimed at overthrowing the revolutionary government.
In violation of all international standards regulating relations between
governments and peoples, instructions were given to create a CIA front
organization made up of the remnants of the Batista dictatorship in exile in
the United States.
In parallel, the entire U.S. military and espionage apparatus was put at
the program's disposition with the immediate objective of organizing a
paramilitary force that would secretly enter Cuba to train and lead terrorist
groups.
Declassified documents released by the U.S. National Security Archive
reveal that the order included an international propaganda offensive and the
creation on the island of a clandestine group to provide intelligence
information.
Eisenhower issued instructions that the hand of the United States should
not be seen in any of those actions and made those present at the signing of
the order swear that they had heard nothing of what was said there.
Allen W. Dulles, then director of the CIA, subsequently received the
president's order that secret reports related to Cuba should not even be
presented to the National Security Council.
A medium wave radio station was set up to broadcast to Cuba via Swan
Island, located to the south of Cuba, to support the propaganda aspect of the
program.
The executive order was equivalent to a declaration of war on a little
country that had not attacked the United States, and Eisenhower himself
acknowledged in his memoirs what happened next.
"On March 17, 1960 I ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to begin
organizing the training of Cuban exiles in Guatemala. Another idea was to set
up an anti-Castro force inside Cuba. Some thought the United States should
quarantine [i.e., blockade] the island, arguing that if the economy suddenly
collapsed, the Cuban people themselves would overthrow Castro," he wrote.
The result of that direct aggression against Cuba was quickly felt with a
huge increase in terrorist attacks, the killing of campesinos by armed bands in
the island's central mountains, and the defeated Bay of Pigs invasion.
War had been unilaterally declared. Decades later, that attempt to
destroy the Cuban Revolution is still latent within the government of the
United States. (PL)
Translated by Granma International
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