Castro, The Miami Cubans and The Media: Sound Bite Journalism

US intrusions into Cuban affairs started in the 18th Century and have not stopped. The infamous Platt Amendment to the Cuban constitution, among other interventionist rights , "gave" us the right to establish a naval base at Guantanamo. Today the base and its ghastly political prison serve as a sad reminder of that jingoistic history.

Current news and political commentary of Cuban developments ignores the historical context surrounding and preceding the events being reported. On the bases of contemporary accounts it would be difficult not to conclude that Castro’s ascension to power in 1959 came at the expense of a thriving democracy, and that the dispossessed Miami Cubans are all freedom loving refugees who came to the US shores to enjoy the fruits of democracy. Typical of such coverage former Senator Majority Leader George Mitchel said in a recent CNN interview, "It looks like the people of Cuba might finally be free of the scourge of Castro's fifty year dictatorship."

Hugh Thomas’s definitive history entitled, Cuba: In Pursuit of Freedom chronicles a far different story, the story of a country exploited by American corporations and a few wealthy Cuban families. The Cuban population as a whole neither owned the country they called home nor did they share in its economic largess. Thomas's writing is not unique; virtually all scholarship detailing Cuban history tells the same wretched story.

In 1959 the Cuban’s illiteracy rate hovered at about 98%, health care for the masses didn’t exist, chronic unemployment was among the highest in the entire hemisphere, and as a Rand Corp. study penned by Leland Johnson indicated the Cuban economy was but an appendage of our own with something like 85% of it owned by American corp. interests.

To get a glimpse of American interests and intentions in Cuba during the revolution and shortly after Castro’s ascension to power, one needs only read the chapter in Nixon’s autobiographical Six Crises. Nixon describes in explicit terms American intentions. . . .i.e., the need to overthrow Castro. Earl E.T. Smith, our Ambassador in Cuba during the critical period leading up to Castro’s eventual victory, similarly wrote a very explicitly self incriminating book entitled, The Forth Floor about US involvement in protecting American business interests at the expense of the welfare of the Cuban masses. In Bush like terms, he writes about his refusal to meet with Castro during the period leading up to Batista’s ouster; on the other hand, he tells about his daily meeting with members of the American business community.

American’s have never understood the misery that was the daily lot in the life of the average Cuban during the period preceding the 1959 revolution. In the early 50's, Castro’s political involvement with Edwardo Chibas’s reform oriented Othodox Party, running for a seat in the Cuban parliament, reflect his political concerns. Lest we forget, it was the dictator Batista who cancelled the democratic elections that started Castro on his revolutionary journey. But beyond the historical details, certainly the Elian Gonzalez case during the Clinton presidency should have indicated that there are two sides to the Cuban story; the mainstream media focus includes the Miami Cuban point of view to the exclusion of the others.

Like the Iraqi expatriates (Mr. Chalibi and friends) who fed the Bush Administration garbage intelligence leading up to the Iraqi war, the Miami Cubans helped to engineer the Bay of Pigs fiasco; a plan premised upon erroneous notions about what Cuban people wanted and what they would do once the invasion started. Contrary to the plan used to shape and direct the assault, the Cuban people did not join the invasion force at the Bay of Pigs as planned; indeed, they opposed it helping the newly installed Castro government easily repel the invasion force.

To be sure the greedy interests of expatriates whether they come from Cuba or Iraq do not serve as a substitute for good, that is reliable, intelligence. During the preparation for the Bay of Pigs Invasion, just as during the shoddy preparation for the current Iraqi war, hard intelligence from reputable intelligence agencies-- the CIA, The State Department and the military agencies-- was brushed aside in favor of tainted information provided by expatriates whose greedy interest in retaking the homeland and reacquiring lost family influence and wealth shaped their "intelligence reports." One doesn’t have listen to very much commentary from the Miami Cubans to hear such motives being explicitly revealed in their current discussions of Castro and Cuba.

The evidence indicates that the Bush Administration did everything they could to shape intelligence reports about Iraqi intentions. The John Bolton hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee demonstrated that he attempted to undermine State Department intelligence specialists who did not see the world as he wanted them to. At least one of them refused to be bullied and sacrificed his career to early retirement rather than lie. Indeed, Bolton currently serves as our Ambassador to the United Nations on a recess appointment because the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would not send his nomination to the Senate floor for a vote because of this incident and others like it.

Can we learn from our mistakes? Journalists need to get beyond the sound bites and put this unfolding story into a meaningful historical context, a context that involves far more that the selfish interests of the Miami Cubans. Where are the reports indicating what the literacy rate is in Cuba today? What is the state of Cuban health care? Is it in fact true that Cuba exports doctors and medical supplies to Third World countries? Why did Castro's Cuba offer to send doctors and medical supplies to the victims of hurricane Katrina? The American people deserve the complete story and it's not being reported.

Ever on the watch for ya,

Davy Crockett