Castro as intelligence asset?
BY JOE CARDONA
jccigar@aol.com
For over five decades Fidel Castro has been viewed by U.S. presidents
and policymakers as an archenemy of American interests and values. The
bearded ``villain'' has been linked to every adverse conspiracy theory
imaginable -- including the murder of President John Kennedy.
During the nearly half century of his rule, the Cuban dictator became an
instrumental ally of the Soviet Union. He armed, trained and financed
dozens of guerrilla movements throughout the world, aided and abetted
every subversive terrorist movement that advocated violence against the
United States, and staunchly supported any world leader that so much as
uttered a syllable of anti-American rhetoric.
Does Fidel Castro match the classic profile of an enemy of state or is
he perhaps nothing more than a cleverly crafted foe? A formidably
designed ruse to lure the Soviets -- the Cold War's Trojan horse?
Throughout my career as a documentary filmmaker, I have conducted
hundreds of interviews with experts and participants of the Cuban
polemic. I have pondered Cuba with former Castro comandantes, ministers
and diplomats. I have analyzed strategies and tactics with
representatives of every opposition movement or faction since the
inception of Cuba's totalitarian regime and dissected strategies with
many significant U.S. policymakers ranging from former secretaries of
state, influential elected officials and key policy shapers. Not to
mention the dozens of distinguished authors and journalists I have
conversed with regarding the enemy island.
Without fail, every conversation leads to countless logic-defying dead ends.
I recognize that politics (whether governing or diplomacy) is an inexact
science susceptible to erroneous intelligence information which can lead
to flawed interpretations, and myopic strategies (including inexplicable
wars like the one we are presently fighting in Iraq).
However, when it comes to analyzing the unusual development of the Cuban
revolution -- given that it hailed mostly from the middle and upper
classes and was not the typical peasant uprising -- and the incredulous
legend of uber Fidel, extolled by many history books as a messianic
leader, one has to question the flawless construction and mystification
of this Third World revolutionary character.
Castro's ascension to power is lined with coincidence, wrought with good
fortune and supported by the superhuman guile he is credited with. The
whole tale seems lifted from an early James Bond film.
Less than two years after coming to power in January of 1959, Castro
overtly allied himself with the Soviet Union and we are to believe that
the American intelligence apparatus was stunned by the move. This, after
Castro had included noted communists, like Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara among
his comandante ranks.
It's hard to fathom that the same superpower that strong-armed and
toppled leaders throughout the Western Hemisphere would so readily
accept an ally of the ``evil empire'' to install himself a scant 90
miles from U.S. shores.
The same American government that has consistently kowtowed to the
Castro regime, sent U.S. soldiers to Panama, clearly violating that
country's sovereignty, arrested its leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega, and
transported him back to the United States where he stood trial and was
jailed.
In light of recent Wikileaks revelations of American intelligence assets
such as former Honduran President Mel Zelaya, is it so far-fetched to
think that Castro was a plan hatched and designed by the budding Central
Intelligence Agency in the late 1940s?
Immediately after World War II, the American political and military
brain trust understood that the new enemy was the Soviet Union. The
ensuing Cold War was a period of proxy wars, political jostling, high
stakes espionage and nuclear weapons build up. What better way to defeat
the Soviets than to have a permanent presence in their fold?
Far more useful than a spy, Cuba and Fidel Castro may have served as the
conduit to drain the Soviet bloc of all of its economic, military and
political resources. And drain Castro did.
Far-fetched theory? An illusion of perception based on a series of
conveniently coincidental tidbits of information?
As I probed deeper into my conspiracy and was reaching the point where
it all began to make sense, I shared my theory with someone whose
opinion on Cuba I respect very much, Jose Azel, a senior research
associate at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and
Cuban-American Studies. Dr. Azel promptly and steadfastly blew holes
into my assertions, pointing out that ``a theory of this magnitude
presupposes a mastermind behind the plan that has the vision to see into
the future. There are also too many variables to control.''
Both great points that are difficult to refute. But what if the plan to
utilize Castro as an intelligence asset was a long process filled with
coincidental twists that snowballed into the secret weapon he may have
become?
If you closely examine Castro's political trajectory you will find that
most of what he has touched or been a part of has been destroyed,
including the Soviet Union.
Who knows? One day Julian Assange's Wikileaks might reveal Fidel Castro
as the great Trojan Horse.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/05/2051679/castro-as-intelligence-asset.html
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