Coping with Castro

The problem of Fidel Castro last week became the U.S.'s most immediate foreign concern. The mutual hostility was now open and declared, but this made the solution no easier.

In retaliation for Castro's seizure of U.S.-owned oil refineries, President Eisenhower had virtually banned U.S. imports of Cuban sugar, the crop Cuba depends most upon. An exasperated U.S. thus got some satisfaction out of no longer putting up with Castro's confiscations and threats.*"The U.S. has run out of cheeks to turn," cracked one U.S. diplomat. But aside from such satisfaction, the U.S. made Castro's lot harder, and worsened the lot of the Cuban people, without really doing anything to cope with Castro. What to do next was the pressing question.

Attempted Murder. U.S. policy was to aim for eventual collective action by the 21-member Organization of American States. Castro had plainly violated the Caracas Declaration of 1954 barring Communist domination of any hemisphere nation. But Latin American politicos tacitly made two demands in return for their support. One was that the U.S. should make no unilateral move against Castro. The other was that the U.S. must support Latino efforts to get rid of dictatorship and backwardness throughout the hemisphere. Last week, when it became plain that Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo of the Dominican Republic was back of the recent attempt to assassinate Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt, the U.S. took a leading role in calling for a special meeting of the OAS that could lead to punishment of Trujillo by diplomatic or economic sanctions.

But after all the forbearance toward Castro, the U.S. last week found Latin American nations not yet willing to side with the U.S. against him. Among workers, peasants and students in Latin America, Castro is still regarded as a legendary hill fighter against tyranny. His professions of land reform and his pulling Uncle Sam's beard made him still more popular. As one Peruvian worker put it: "The gringos don't want to see Latin countries shake themselves free of their claws. That's why they're trying to topple Castro."

Under such pressures, Latin American governments shied at opposing Castro. The tip-off came in Mexico. Prompted by Mexican ex-President Lazaro Cardenas, who expropriated foreign oil holdings himself in 1938, a congressional leader of Mexico's ruling party said: "In this critical moment for our sister republic of Cuba, when it appears that our Northern neighbor is closing the door of friendship and comprehension to the yearning of the Cuban people to live in liberty and economic independence, we, the representatives of the Mexican people, repeat our attitude of solidarity with the people of Cuba." In an actual OAS showdown, Mexico--and other major Latin nations--would probably declare their neutrality between the U.S. and Cuba.

Forced Feeding. What other courses are open? Direct armed intervention presumably went out with manifest destiny and banana republicanism, and is specifically banned by the OAS charter. In Guatemala in 1954, the U.S. tried secret support of Rebel Leader Carlos Castillo Armas against the Communist-infiltrated regime of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, and "Guatemala" has been a dirty word in Communist propaganda ever since. Overt U.S. backing for an internal rebellion might only serve to rally Cubans behind Castro.

Under forced draft last week, Eisenhower and his Latin American advisers came up with an idea that could show Latin America that the U.S.'s heart was in the right place: a massive campaign with the scope and openhandedness of the postwar Marshall Plan, to lift Latin America from economic backwardness. The plan showed a belated awareness that the two most powerful drives among the have-nots of the hemisphere--nationalism and the urge to escape ignorance and poverty--have too long been the property of the left.

The idea, advocated by Milton Eisenhower, had been on the back burner a long time. The trouble with bringing it forward now was the evidence that the U.S. was forced into it by Fidel Castro (whom Ike specifically banned from any benefits the plan may produce). And, if it is not to suffer the fate of other grand plans for hemisphere development, it must not be left in the hands of forgotten committees, enfeebled by too little funds, or diluted into a mere reshuffling of old plans and agencies. It would not of itself cure ancient suspicions of the U.S., which demagogues easily exploit; and it was no real answer to Castro.

* Worried over the prospect of possible injury to U.S. visiting or resident baseball players, the International League took steps to transfer the franchise of the Triple A Havana Sugar Kings to Jersey City.

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