Source: U.S., Department of State, FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES 1961-1963, Volume X Cuba, 1961-1962 Washington, DC
NIE 85-62
Washington, March 21, 1962.
//Source: Washington National Records Center, RG 330, OASD (C) A Files: FRC
71 A 2896, McNamara Briefing Notebooks, 12 Jan. 63. Secret. A covering note
indicates that this estimate, submitted by McCone, was prepared by CIA, and
the intelligence organizations of the Departments of State, Defense, the Army,
the Navy, and the Air Force, the Joint Staff, and NSA. All members of the USIB
concurred on March 21 except the representative of the AEC, who abstained on
the grounds that the topic was outside his jurisdiction.
THE SITUATION AND PROSPECTS IN CUBA
The Problem
To analyze the situation in Cuba and the relationships of the Castro regime
with both the Soviet Bloc and the Latin American republics, and to estimate
the prospects over the next year or so.
Foreword
Cuba is now, in effect, surrounded by an iron curtain. Our information on internal
developments is not as complete or as reliable as we could wish. On some important
matters, it is seriously inadequate. These deficiencies are expressly noted
where applicable in the text of this estimate: e.g., paragraphs 19, 30, 106,
and 111. In general, the information available is sufficient to support the
estimate. The estimate will be under continuing review as additional information
is obtained.
Summary and Conclusions
1. The pattern of events in Cuba clearly reveals the historical step by step
Communist procedure for attaining complete control of a country. During the
past year Cuba has, in effect, gone behind an iron curtain. The regime has thoroughly
reorganized its political, economic, police, and military systems in the classic
Communist ideological fashion. It has also sought to identify itself with the
Soviet Bloc in terms that would obligate the USSR to protect it. The Bloc, however,
has avoided any explicit military commitment to defend Cuba. (Paras. 17-29)
2. In Cuba there is in process of development a single party organization essentially
Communist in character. It is designed to be the means of directing and controlling
the operations of the government, the economy, and the mass organizations through
which revolutionary indoctrination and leadership are transmitted to the people.
Fidel Castro will presumably be the titular head of this organization, but the
real political power in Cuba is likely to be vested in a collective leadership
including Castro but dominated by a group of veteran Communists. Some degree
of friction is probable in this relationship, but an open conflict is highly
unlikely. (Paras. 30-37, 133)
3. The regime has sought to commit the Cuban people to positive personal identification
with it through propaganda, indoctrination, and mass organizations. At the same
time, it has developed a pervasive system of surveillance and police control.
(Paras. 38-53)
4. The forces available to the regime to suppress insurrection or repel invasion
have been and are being greatly improved, with substantial Bloc assistance through
the provision of materiel and instruction. Cuban military capabilities, however,
are essentially defensive. We believe it unlikely that the Bloc will provide
Cuba with strategic weapon systems or with air and naval capabilities suitable
for major independent military operations overseas. We also believe it unlikely
that the Bloc will station in Cuba combat units of any description, at least
for the period of this estimate. This attitude would not preclude the liberal
provision of Bloc advisers, instructors, and service personnel, the provision
of such defensive weapons and equipment as surface-to-air missiles and radars,
and such improvement of Cuban naval and air facilities as would enable them
to service Soviet units. (Paras. 54-69)
5. The state has taken over the direct control of all important economic activities
in Cuba, and has developed a more elaborate organization for economic management.
(Paras. 70-77)
6. Cuba is now faced with an economic crisis attributable in large part to an
acute shortage of the convertible foreign exchange required to finance greatly
needed imports of foodstuffs and of replacement parts for machinery and equipment
of US origin. The Bloc provides a guaranteed market for Cuban sugar and minerals,
and supplies foodstuffs, other consumers' goods, and industrial raw materials
in return, but not in sufficient quantity to meet Cuba's needs. The Bloc has
also extended credits for Cuban industrial development, but the actual implementation
of these projects is slow. Castro has now told the Cuban people that they face
years of privation. (Paras. 78-94)
7. The initial popular enthusiasm for the revolution has steadily waned. Many
men who fought against Batista have been alienated by the even more dictatorial
character of the Castro regime and its increasingly Communist complexion. The
vaunted agrarian reform has done little to improve the lot of the peasants.
Moreover, people are becoming fed up with the privations, exactions, and regimentation
that characterize life in Castro's Cuba. (Paras. 95-103)
8. Nevertheless, Fidel Castro and the Revolution retain the positive support
of at least a quarter of the population. The hard core of this support consists
principally of those who now have a vested interest in the regime: the new managerial
class and the Communists. These are reinforced by the substantial numbers of
Cubans, especially those in the mass organizations, who are still under the
spell of Castro's charismatic leadership or are convinced the Revolution has
been to their advantage. (Para. 104)
9. There is active resistance in Cuba, but it is limited, uncoordinated, unsupported,
and desperate. The regime, with all the power of repression at its disposal,
has shown that it can contain the present level of resistance activity. (Paras.
107-114)
10. The majority of the Cuban people neither support the regime nor resist it,
in any active sense. They are grumbling and resentful, but apparently hopeless
and passive, resigned to acceptance of the present regime as the effective government
in being with which they must learn to live for lack of a feasible alternative.
(Para. 106)
11. The next year or two will be a critical period for the Castro regime. The
1962 sugar crop will be the smallest in years; the difficulty of acquiring convertible
foreign exchange will be greater than ever. Want of convertible exchange will
limit Cuba's ability to purchase foodstuffs and other needed supplies in the
Free World. No substantial increase in the supplies provided by the Bloc is
likely during 1962. In these circumstances it is unlikely that the total output
of the Cuban economy in 1962 can rise above the 1961 level. Under consequent
privations, the Cuban people are likely to become more restive. Much will depend
on whether the regime succeeds in directing their resentment toward the US,
or whether it comes to focus on the regime. (Paras. 92, 94, 106, 129)
12. The regime's apparatus for surveillance and repression should be able to
cope with any popular tendency toward active resistance. Any impulse toward
widespread revolt is inhibited by the fear which this apparatus inspires, and
also by the lack of dynamic leadership and of any expectation of liberation
within the foreseeable future. In these circumstances, increasing antagonism
toward the regime is likely to produce only a manageable increase in isolated
acts of sabotage or of open defiance on the part of a few desperate men. A sequence
of disaffection-repression-resistance could conceivably be set in motion, but
would be unlikely to cause major difficulties for the regime in the absence
of considerable external support. (Paras. 114, 132)
13. The overriding concern of Cuban foreign policy is to obtain external support
and protection against the hostility of the US. The USSR and other Bloc states
will continue to render such aid and support to the Castro regime as they consider
necessary. If the overthrow of the regime should be seriously threatened by
either external or internal forces, the USSR would almost certainly not intervene
directly with its own forces. However, interpreting even an internal threat
as US intervention, the USSR would seek to deter the US by vigorous political
action, including threats of retaliation on the periphery of the Bloc as well
as ambiguous references to Soviet nuclear power. Nevertheless, the USSR would
almost certainly never intend to hazard its own safety for the sake of Cuba.
(Paras. 23-27, 122, 130, 134)
14. By the end of 1960, Castro had few admirers left among politically active
Latin Americans, except the Communists, extremist splinter groups broken off
from the established social revolutionary parties, and certain student and labor
elements. (Para. 116)
15. At Punta del Este the OAS unanimously condemned communism in Cuba as incompatible
with the inter-American system and laid the groundwork for increased efforts
to combat Castro-Communist subversion. However, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile,
Bolivia, and Ecuador abstained on the operative resolution excluding the Castro
regime from the organs of the OAS. The Castro regime will seek to cultivate
those Latin American governments which have shown reluctance to support measures
against it and will probably refrain from flagrant acts which could provide
the occasion for US or OAS intervention in Cuba. (Paras. 115-120, 128)
16. The Castro-Communist threat in Latin America results from the ability of
a well-organized subversive movement centered in Cuba to exploit the natural
tendency of entrenched oligarchies to resist the growing demand for radical
social reform. What is seen by radical revolutionary elements in Latin America
is that, while others have talked of social reform, Fidel Castro has actually
accomplished a radical social revolution in Cuba, and has done so in defiance
of the Yankees with the support of an apparently more powerful patron. Relatively
moderate reformist regimes are now ascendant in most Latin American countries,
but, if the Alliance for Progress should fail to produce its intended social
reforms in time to meet rising popular demands, the conviction will grow that
Castro's way is the only way to get timely and positive results. Thus, despite
Castro's alienation of the moderate reformists, there remains a danger that
the Cuban example will set the pattern of the impending social revolution in
Latin America. (Paras. 66-69, 115-118, 120-121)
Return to Cuban Missile Crisis Page