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(This is the last in a series of articles by Harry Schwartz, being reprinted from the March 14 issue of the New Leader.)
Thursday, March 31, 1960 University Daily Kansan
THIS CORRESPONDENT left Cuba with a heavy heart, convinced that it represents as ugly a situation as we have ever faced in Latin America, even if one discounts the worst possibilities—such as a Cuban-Soviet mutual-defense agreement—which panic-mongers in Washington have conjured up. Fundamental social and economic revolutions are likely to be messy, nasty affairs with all kinds of ugly consequences for fat, complacent neighbors. The Cuban Revolution is no exception to that rule, even though it is not now a Moscow-directed Communist revolution.
WHAT CAN OR SHOULD be done about this mess? Looked at most generally there would seem to be four main possibilities:
1. The United States can use force by sending in the Marines or their equivalent. I think this would be a disastrous error as well as a catastrophic moral blot on our world position, skin to that which Hungary gave the Soviet Union. Even if we were so unwise as to put moral or political considerations aside, the fact must be faced that the great bulk of the Cuban people supports the Castro regime and is now being armed by that regime. Any attempt at American military invasion of Cuba would face us with the same kind of terrible problems that France faced in Indochina and faces now in Algeria, even if Moscow kept out of the situation. If Moscow were to enter, the consequences would be incalculable. Short of the most extreme provocation, there can be no rational case for military intervention.
2. The United States can apply economic sanctions. The elimination or sharp reduction of the Cuban sugar quota; passage of a law prohibiting any American paying more for Cuban sugar than the Soviet Union is paying, these and similar possibilities would be heavy
blows indeed. But such sanctions can be double-edged weapons, and the first victims of Cuban retaliation would be American business interests in Cuba. Moreover, the result of such sanctions would surely be an appeal from Havana to Moscow for economic aid, so they could easily throw Cuba fully into Moscow's arms with all the possibilities contained therein. But perhaps most immediately, such sanctions would ruin the Cuban upper-class and middle-class groups where there is the greatest understanding of the American position and the greatest desire for a reasonable settlement. In any case, we have criticized Russia too often for using economic weapons for political ends to contemplate lightly emulation of such behaviour.
4. The United States can break out of its present bonds of resentments and legalistic fetishes and try to formulate an imaginative policy that would really have hopes of settling the Cuban problem satisfactorily.
3. The United States can sit tight and adopt the Micawberish policy of hoping something will turn up. Perhaps Castro's mistakes will turn the Cuban people against him. Perhaps the moderate elements in his regime will win the upper hand, etc. The trouble with this policy is that it immobilizes our vast resources and leaves the initiative to others either in Cuba or in Congress where many would like to embark upon the road of economic sanction.
I WOULD NOT BE so presumptuous as to suppose that I can airily frame an infallible policy on this complex issue, but certain essential elements of a satisfactory policy toward Cuba would seem clear:
First, this country must take all measures necessary to assure that planes taking off from our country do not attack Cuba. A round-the-clock air patrol off the Florida coast, by planes carrying airborne radar, might do the trick. So might a tightening-up of controls over planes rented in Florida so as to avoid the deception we know was
practiced last month when a rented plane exploded over Cuba. Certainly all Americans have a great interest in not permitting any further demonstrations that we cannot or will not stop a plane taking off from our country to attack another country with which we are at peace. Cuba is too close for us to forget that what is sauce for the American goose could become sauce for the Cuban gander.
SECOND. SINCE THE Cubans are so anxious to make their sugar sales to us a matter of bilateral negotiations rather than unilateral determination by Congress, let us accede to their wishes. But in carrying on such negotiations, let us use that opportunity to require benefits for American economic interests in return for benefits for Cuban economic interests. An effort at total negotiations of all economic matters between the two countries—sugar quotas, compensation for American investors whose property is being taken, payment of debts owed American firms, etc.—would provide an opportunity for an integrated approach to a whole thorny set of problems, as well as satisfy the injured Cuban sense of national dignity.
Third, any U.S. policy toward Cuba must recognize that the history of relations between the two countries gives us a special responsibility toward that country and a special obligation. At the very least we must grant we have made major errors in our policy toward Cuba if the state of relations with that country has sunk to its present exasperated level. Sympathy for the Cuban people and for their aspirations must remain central in our thinking, hard as that may be when we see the Havana Government flirting with Moscow and trying to poison our relations with Latin America. The whirlwind we are now reaping in Cuba was at least in part sown by us. That fact cannot be overlooked as we search for a policy which would re-establish really friendly relations with Cuba, the center of Latin American attention today.
ADVERTISEMENT
Lewellyn Looks at
With Jules Dubois and his Cuban chorus fading into the dim distance the trials and tribulations of Latin America have taken a back seat on campus these last few weeks. "The Way to Liberty and Order," a picture-story of democracy and self-government in Colombia and Part III of a six-part series, adds a little insight to the problems faced by a country desirous of democratic forms but ill-equipped to implement them. If nothing else, it's a Cinderella story of one man's rise in a country where poverty and strife have been next to national symbols.
Democracy, freedom, equality, these are familiar words to us. You might be interested in contrasting the sights of a country struggling valiantly to establish these concepts with the pictures and stories on page 26. One of the grimmest three-picture sequences ever filmed, this is the brutality that those words leave in their absence.
This week we have Nikki in Paris, which is somewhat less romantic than April in Paris. But Khrushchev, little concerned about the romanticism of his visit, blusters through a series of pictures in a presentation of a gold sputnik replica to President de Gaulle that slightly resembles the presentation of an incomprehensible toy to a disinterested child by an eager-beaver daddy.
Botanists, come back! Last week we offered only zinnias and snap-dragons. This week we have four full pages of blooming, bleeding vegetables in blinding color. Well, it's not quite that bad. The double page spread on pages 70 and 71 does deserve further comment, however. It comes the closest I have ever seen to making a watermelon look sexy. (And when you get right down to it, that's doing something.) Those of you seriously contemplating beating the dorm food with your own home-grown goodies will find spring planting schedules on page 74.
For a close-up of the man managing the Milwaukee Braves this year, the short bit on Chuck Dressen is excellent. Dressen gives his views on what it will take to put life in the Braves, why the Dodgers won't make the
grade this year and what's wrong with Milwaukee's pitching. All this in a verbose set of quotes that runs a close second only to Stengelese.
Save your Marlboro boxes, kids,
Marlon Brando is this week's
cover girl. Looking vaguely like
a leftover from a cigarette ad,
Marlon is playing cowboy. But
being of the older set, this alone
is not enough to keep him occupied.
Story and pictures begin on
page 105. Marlon runs around the
set playing producer, director and
actor and spending time and
money hand over bullwhip. The
most impressive fact is that he
likes like he knows what he's
doing most of the time.
Of specific interest to the ROTC crowd and of extreme general interest to those of you who have made plans that involve staying alive past 1965, is the editorial article, "Shameful Strife in the Pentagon." John Osborne, Life Staff Writer, presents four changes in the present military merry-go-round that make pretty sound sense. Regardless of your evaluation of the particular proposals made, the article brings to light some pertinent facts and bits of speculation. Tied in — in a loose sort of way — is the editorial concerning the Russian-proposed ban of nuclear weapon testing. The political implications of both situations are covered well, if not thoroughly.
While the world struggled with democracy and race riots and we struggled with the psychosexual connotations of the spring thaw, the staff of Life Magazine trooped merrily into a new building in Rockefeller Center. Unwilling to risk a photographer, they hung a camera off the top of the building and took a remote control, wide-angle shot of its impressive vertical mass. It takes seven pages to show the world the various views that will henceforth inspire the staff. But after all, what can you expect? It's their magazine.
Realizing that I may invoke the wrath of all right-minded individuals, let me suggest that it is comforting to see the preservation of one aspect of our culture reported on page 66.