Granma Remembers La Coubre on its 2015 Anniversary

A researcher in Cuban's Center for the Historical Investigation of State Security, Tomas Gutierrez Gonzalez, has published the most detailed accounting of the La Coubre disaster that I have encountered in the Cuban press. While most Cuban articles published on or around the anniversary day of March 4 mix fact with fiction "proving" the explosion to be the result of US intervention, Gutierrez sticks to the facts of the explosion and its immediate aftermatch. Much of his information can be found in Cuban newspaper articles published in the days following the explosion. Other details must come from oral histories he or others have gathered from stevedores, soldiers, and others who were on the docks. Some insights undoubtedly come from Cuba's own investigation into the event. 

But the majority of what is here is publicly available in old newspapers and accounts such as that of Jean Paul Sartre. 

Interesting to me, is that despite the increased detail and better writing, which certainly lends more authority to his story than to most published in Cuba about this event, Gutierrez still doesn't feel the need to go beyond Fidel Castro's initial explanation of the sabotage. There is no attempt to put together a more specific or more accurate case than the one Castro first made on March 5, 1960, the day after the explosion. 

If any writer or historian has access to additional documents in Cuba, it would probably be Gutierrez, who works for the government. Why not share more? Do they not have any more information in Cuba about how La Coubre was sabotaged (assuming it was)? 

While there is a lot of interesting detail about the moment-to-moment experience of the explosion, Gutierrez's article still leaves a lot out. And, by its end, the ultimate impact of the piece is to invoke the omniscience of Fidel Castro, as if his speech of March 5, 1960, tells us everything we really need to know about La Coubre. While this may not be surprising given the official outlet, one would think that Gutierrez (who, I repeat, is a good writer) might have done research beyond the collection of oral histories and note-taking from newspapers. And, if the Cubans do know more facts about who blew up La Coubre and how the sabotage was carried out, why not share them?

From Hampton Sides to Erik Larson to Gwyn Griffin: An Operational Necessity

Full disclosure: I have yet to read Erik Larson's new book, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. I have only read Hampton Sides' review published in The New York Times Sunday Book Review. 

In his review, Sides describes Larson's mastery as he places readers in the U-20 submarine that would sink the Lusitania with a single torpedo. Writes Sides, "The passages concerning the U-20 knife along with a clean and wicked élan."

But it was this revelation by Sides that caught my attention: "Maybe it’s a perverse thing to admit, but for much of the book I found myself rooting for the German submariners, sympathizing with their loneliness and claustrophobia, their mad dives and other maneuvers as they groped through the murk, the perils squeezing in from all sides." 

Americans have something of a fetish when it comes to WWI and WWII stories. Often little interested in nonfiction that dips into other geographies, we seem incapable to satiating a ravenous appetite for stories involving "The Greatest Generation" or our battles against the Germans. Maybe it is because, as the narratives tend to go, the sides were so clear cut. Good vs. Evil, the Allied Powers vs. the Axis Powers. fascism vs. democracy. New vs. Old. Things were simpler then... (I am often dubious of this claim.) 

Given all this, Sides' moment of ambivalence, his willingness to admit to briefly "rooting for the German submariners" jumped out at me and brought to mind a masterful war novel that I recently rediscovered on my bookshelf: An Operation Necessity by Gwyn Griffin.  My copy of Griffin's 1967 book means something to me. It was a Christmas gift from a family friend who participated in -- and barely survived -- WWII. 

While I haven't looked at Larson's bibliography and though his book discusses and earlier war, I would be surprised if he didn't read Griffin's novel as background. Much of Griffin's novel also takes place on a German submarine and his descriptions of life below the surface could hardly be etched with a tool less sharp than Larson's blade. Griffin's submarine destroys a merchant ship. Unlike the passenger ship, Lusitania, however, the freighter in An Operational Necessity carried no weapons and played no role in the outcome of the war. Its destruction, and that of (most -- don't want to give away the plot!) of its crew seemed gratuitous and had mostly to do with the Germans' attempt to save their own skins as the final days of the war played out.

As a study in moral ambiguity, of showing all sides of a conflict we think we understand, of allowing each character -- male and female -- to represent the good and bad in each of us, An Operational Necessity is hard to beat. 

The novel is based on the real-life Peleus Incident, which is the only recorded case of a U boat captain shooting the survivors of a sinking ship. As it did in real life, the novel leads to a war crimes trial where the truth is difficult to discern and the ethical (and ethnic) lines begin to blur. If you are interested in reading an absorbing war novel that eschews heroics in its search for truth, pick up a used copy of An Operational Necessity. Highly recommended!

Assata Shakur (Joanne Chesimard) and Extradition from Cuba -- With a Twist

The Cuban deputy director for American affairs at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gustavo Machin, made news a couple of days ago when he said that the extradition of Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Liberation Army, was "off the table" as the US and Cuba tip-toe towards renewed diplomatic relations. 

Officials from New Jersey, where Shakur was tried and convicted of killing a police officer on very questionable evidence (for background I recommend this interview with Shakur's lawyer, Lennox Hinds), have been pressing the US State Department to demand Shakur's extradition. In 2013, forty years after the shootout that almost killed her, the FBI named Shakur the most-wanted woman in the world and offered a two million dollar reward (bounty?) for her capture. Gov. Chris Christie, and Senator Robert Menendez have seized on this moment to make some political hay, writing to Secretary of State John Kerry that, "It is essential to recognize that the Castro regime has a long track record of providing sanctuary to terrorists and harboring U.S. fugitives who have murdered American citizens, while undermining international security." (Of course, this finger pointing can work in both directions: Exhibit A -- Luis Posada Carriles.)

Apparent summary so far: The US wants Shakur returned to the US to serve out the prison term from which she escaped in 1984, but the Cuban government has put its foot down, citing the questionable trial and evidence against Shakur.

A well-placed Cuban source of mine tells a different story. According to him, the US State Department has no intention of asking for Shakur's extradition. For political reasons, they are willing to allow the Cuban's to snatch the headlines. Most likely they will keep a low profile and do their best to avoid the topic altogether. 

Their rationale, however, is interesting. Over the more-than thirty years  that Shakur has lived in Cuba, she has become an beacon to the island's Afro-Cubans, whose status under the Castro's can be debated. According to my source, the US State Department has no desire to alienate Afro-Cubans who are seen as an important future source of ideas and leadership in post-Castro Cuba. Therefore, they will avoid disrupting the life of Shakur who has promoted a sense of Afro-Cuban and African Diaspora identity. 

March 4, 1960: The Explosion that Ended US-Cuban Relations for 55 Years

Then a ship blew up in Havana harbor, destroying the last chance for an accommodation between Fidel Castro and the Americans. -- Tad Szulc, Fidel: A Critical Portrait, 1986

When people think about beginning of the Cold War between the United States and Cuba, the first events that usually come to mind are the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the critical moment came a year before the Bay of Pigs and more than two years prior to the discovery of Soviet warheads in Cuba.

A cloud of smoke rises over Havana Harbor as the La Coubre freighter explodes on March 4, 1960.

On March 4 1960, the French freighter La Coubre arrived in Havana Harbor to deliver a load of Belgian arms to Cuba’s revolutionary government. Only fifteen months earlier, Fidel Castro and his rebel army had chased the dictator Fulgencio Batista out of the country and into exile.

Increasingly concerned by Castro’s ever-more radical policies, the US government exhausted diplomatic channels in Europe, trying – and failing – to prevent the ship and its cargo from leaving Europe. Meanwhile, Castro rallied the Cuban people, warning them that the arms were essential to protect the island’s sovereignty from threats originating from the United States.

Then, just hours after it docked in Havana, the ship blew up, destroying its controversial cargo, scattering the limbs of ship's crew and Cuban stevedores over the docks, killing as many as a hundred people, and injuring three times that number. The casualty numbers were enormous, especially considering that Cuba’s population barely made six million.

News of the explosion ripped through the divided Cold War world. Fidel Castro accused the American government of committing a terrorist act. Soviet and Chinese officials broadcast news of US sponsored “sabotage”. US State Department officials publicly recoiled at the accusation. If Castro, who had yet to declare his Marxist intentions, had intended to walk a fine line of neutrality, allying himself with neither the US nor the Communist powers, it now appeared that choosing sides would be inevitable.

Two weeks after the tragedy, on March 17, 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower responded to Castro’s La Coubre accusations by secretly and definitively approving plans to overthrow Cuba’s leader. 

Cuba increased the pace at which it was nationalizing US and Cuban businesses. The US ended its commitment to buy Cuban sugar. By October, the last US ambassador to Cuba, Philip Bonsal, left the country on a ferry, never to return. In January of 1961, diplomatic ties were severed officially. And in April, a CIA-directed brigade of (mostly) exiled-Cubans were quickly overcome and captured by Fidel Castro's forces in what became known as the Bay of Pigs, an event that would ripple through American history and politics for generations. 

So was La Coubre an accident? Or sabotage? And if it was sabotage, who was responsible?  The CIA? Cuban counterrevolutionaries attempting to topple Castro? Agents of J. Edgar Hoover or the Dominican Republic's dictator, Rafael Trujillo? Some combination of the above forces and interests? There were many possibilities.

Of course, this explosion echoes the USS Maine disaster in 1898, which became the justification -- "Remember the Maine!" --  for the Spanish-American war and what many scholars  the dawn of US international imperialism. (It wasn't long ago, that the US Navy decided (admitted?) that the USS Maine explosion was probably an accident.)

Stay tuned for more posts! I have been researching the La Coubre disaster for more than a year and will start sharing some of what I have found. 

One Powerful Mexican's Reaction to a Recent NYT Story

On March 2, 2015, the Financial Times published an interview with Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto. In it, President Peña observed that Mexico's progress was limited by "incredulity and distrust." His comment brought to mind a recent experience.

 It was the usual Thursday night crowd down that the 111 Bar and Restaurant in Valle de Bravo, a mix of Americans and Mexicans, a Canadian, a Frenchman and one or two whose sinuous family origins prove too difficult to name in just a word. The evening’s conversation stuck close to the adventures of a new arrival to town, a vivacious Spanish-Mexican woman who was taking some time away from her job as a make-up artist with Cirque du Soleil. 

Later in the evening a well groomed, wolf-faced, seventy-something man joined our table together with his girlfriend whose tinted hair glinted in the low light, striking the intended balance between expensive casual and easy elegance. Some at the table knew this man, others did not. He listened to the organic burble of conversation for a time, participating occasionally. We learned that he lived part of his time in France. His girlfriend had been born in Barcelona.  

During a lull, he raised a topic of his own. “Did any of you read the article in The New York Times about José Murat Casab?” he asked. Most hadn’t. I had. We quickly described the contents of the article, which revealed the (highly probable) deep corruption of a former governor of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. 

But “Wolf”, as I shall call him, was prepared with a surprising follow-up question. “What,” he asked, “is Carlos Slim’s interest in publishing this article?” We all looked at him. “We all know,” he continued, “that Slim is the majority owner of The New York Times.” Indeed, just a month before the article came out on February 12th — an article that the reporters had spent a year or more researching — Mexico’s richest man had exercised options that gave him a 16.8% stake in the world’s most prestigious newspaper. Wolf drew a short, straight line between Slim’s ownership stake and the Molotov cocktail of a story. 

We beat around a few ideas about Slim’s interests in the paper(ego?, a desire to influence Mexican politics from abroad?), and the degree to which he could influence editorial policy (not much? quite a bit?).

“What about you?” we asked Wolf. “What do you think?”

“I am a PRI-ista (referring to his membership in the political organization that ruled Mexico for 70 years before losing consecutive elections and in 2000 and 2006. In 2012, they retook the Mexico’s presidential office.) He is trying to hurt the PRI,” he said, his voice rising. “He is going against us.”  

“Why?” we asked. 

“That is what I want to know,” he complained. “Why is Slim singling us out?” 

The New York Times article had shaken him and, he suggested, his whole set of Mexican, power-broker friends. He acknowledged that he and his cronies were adept at silencing any embarrassing story the Mexican press dared to publish. The American media, however, was beyond their reach, especially when backed by someone as powerful as their former ally, Carlos Slim. The Mexican people, he suggested, would take a Times story far more seriously than anything published in El Universal or Reforma. 

If I had to describe the expression on his face during this conversation I would say that it contained three elements: entitlement, rage, and fear. His entitlement came through in the expectation that we would share his thinking and, if we didn't, well, we could go to hell. Clearly, this betrayal by Slim of the power that had helped to make him one of the world’s richest men made Wolf seethe. And you could see that the uncertainty of Slim’s intentions and of the implications of the NYT story frightened him.

Describing the fear felt by many in the PRI at the publication of the article he made a joke. “Do you know the difference between miedo and pavor?” he asked. Many of us shook our heads, no. “Miedo (fear) is when your wife tells you she is pregnant. Pavor (dread) is when your secretary tells you she is pregnant.” We laughed. “There are a lot of people in Mexico right now who, because of that article, are feeling pavor.” 

Then he said something that seemed to me extraordinary. “This country is headed for civil war,” he said. “There is no way to avoid it.”

A long-time, Canadian resident of Mexico resisted. “I don’t agree. Too many people remember the pain of the revolution one-hundred years ago. They don’t want to go through that again.” The Canadian was thinking of Mexico’s poor and their already too-precarious lives. What would more suffering achieve?

“No,” said Wolf. “There will be another revolution.” He paused as he gathered his thoughts to explain why he was right. I anticipated that he would talk about class hatred, perhaps saying that for too long Mexico’s rich had failed to help Mexico’s poor rise a few inches above their destitution, or describe the failures of the education system. Instead he said, “When the teachers took over Reforma (Mexico City’s primary boulevard became a tent camp recently, not an unusual occurrence) I wanted to go with one hundred of my friends, block off their escape routes, and kill them all.” 

Those around the table looked at him a bit stunned, perhaps as rabbits might consider a four-legged wolf in the wild. In his telling, it wasn't the poor who would instigate a hot revolution, but the rich, sick and tired of having their entitlements inconvenienced. 

After a moment, I asked a last question of the man, whose candor seemed to offer a fascinating glimpse into the ruthless rationale of power, completely detached from the people whose lives, sweat, and suffering built his wealth and privilege. “People of all parties seemed to think that when the PRI won back the Presidency in 2012, that they would establish order. That it might be corrupt, but that business would flourish, money would flow, and the drug cartels would stay in line. It seems that none of this has happened. The cartels are rampant, business is floundering, the peso is at 15 to the dollar. How does this make you feel?”

I wasn't sure if he would answer my question. But he did. “It makes me very worried. And very sad. Imagine,” he said, “there are still four years left of this presidency. These are not going to be good years.”