Carter And Cuba

ngs Projects Documents FOIA DNSA Blog Русские Страницы About Carter and Cuba: A Legacy of Dedicated Diplomacy Toward Normalization In May 2002, Jimmy Carter became the first US president in or out of office to visit Cuba, where he was welcomed by the island's communist leader Fidel Castro In May 2002, Jimmy Carter became the first US president in or out of office to visit Cuba, where he was welcomed by the island's communist leader Fidel Castro. Exclusive: Archive Publishes Jimmy Carter Interview on Cuba Policy Carter was First President to Order Official Effort to Normalize Relations, White House Records Show Former President Opposed Trade Embargo and Bush-era Travel Restrictions as “restraints on American civil liberties” “Why can’t I sell my peanuts to Cuba? Why can’t my Sunday school class take an unrestricted visit to Cuba?” Published: Jan 15, 2025 Briefing Book # 882 Edited by Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or peter.kornbluh@gmail.com Subjects Cold War – General Regions Cuba and Caribbean Project Cuba Back Channel to Cuba The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana William M. LeoGrande, Peter Kornbluh University of North Carolina Press back channel Spanish cover Diplomacia encubierta con Cuba. Historia de las negociaciones secretas entre Washington y La Habana LeoGrande, William M., y Peter Kornbluh FONDO DE CULTURA ECONÓMICA (FCE) Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba Edited by Peter Kornbluh Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National Security Archive Documents Reader Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National Security Archive Documents Reader by National Security Archive (Compiler), Laurence Chang (Editor), Peter Kornbluh (Editor) Washington, D.C., January 15, 2025 - The late President Jimmy Carter, who was laid to rest last week after a state funeral in Washington, D.C., adamantly believed that the U.S. embargo on Cuba was “a deprivation of American civil liberties” and called restrictions on trade and travel “unconscionable,” according to an interview published for the first time today by the National Security Archive. The interview recorded Carter’s continuing commitment to normalizing relations with Cuba long after he had attempted, through secret diplomacy, to do so during his presidency. “I felt that it was time for us to have completely normal relations with Cuba,” as Carter reflected on his time in the White House. “And I felt then, as I do now, that the best way to bring about a change in its Communist regime was to have open trade and commerce, and visitation, and diplomatic relations with Cuba.” The Archive posted an audio file and transcription of the exclusive interview—conducted by the co-authors of Back Channel to Cuba, William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh, at the Carter Center in Atlanta in July 2004—along with a revealing selection of formerly TOP SECRET White House, NSC and State Department records on the Carter administration’s back-channel efforts to negotiate better bilateral ties with Cuba. The documentation covers what one secret briefing paper described as “the extremely complex and nettlesome” issues in U.S.-Cuba relations during Carter’s tenure as president, the secret meetings between emissaries, as well as Carter’s post-presidency efforts to act as a secret interlocutor between Washington and Havana to resolve the 1994 balsero crisis. The declassified history of Carter’s focus on back-channel diplomacy remains relevant this week as the Biden administration dramatically announced its decision to remove Cuba from the list of states that support terrorism and lift several punitive Trump-era sanctions. Less than a week before Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Biden administration’s effort to improve U.S.-Cuba relations comes as the Senate Foreign Relations committee holds confirmation hearings for secretary of state nominee Marco Rubio, the leading proponent of applying “maximum pressure” on Cuba. Rubio’s nomination hearings are sure to raise questions about the wisdom of punitive measures in the wake of President Biden’s dramatic, last minute, lifting of sanctions imposed during the first Trump administration. Presidential Directive NSC-6 The Carter-Cuba Initiative “I have concluded that we should attempt to achieve normalization of our relations with Cuba,” President Carter instructed his national security team just weeks after taking office in 1977. “To this end, we should begin direct and confidential talks in a measured and careful fashion with representatives of the Government of Cuba.” Known as NSC-6, this directive marked the first time a U.S. president had formally initiated a comprehensive effort toward a rapprochement with Fidel Castro’s revolutionary regime. Declassified documents posted today include a secret, 17-page Presidential Review Memorandum (PRM) on U.S. interests and challenges in attempting to normalize relations with Cuba. Among the “many compelling reasons” it listed: “Lessening of Cuban dependence on the Soviet Union,” giving Cuba “added incentives to cease its foreign adventures in Africa,” and demonstrating U.S. “support for the universalist principles in diplomatic relations and make a major gesture to the Third World which sees our posture toward Cuba as symbolic of great-power aggression.” Normalized relations would also “enable us to pursue important U.S. interests with Cuba such as human rights” and “open up trade opportunities in a relatively small but natural market for us,” according to the PRM. But “the difficulties in achieving full normalization should not be minimized,” the PRM stated with a prescient warning. “The process of resolving differences with Cuba will be difficult and tensions and problems will remain even after relations have been restored.” Initially, Carter’s directive set off a flurry of positive interaction and results. The President made a series of gestures toward Cuba, including lifting restrictions on U.S. travel to the island. Cuban and U.S. delegations held a series of meetings to sign a fishing treaty and take a major step toward re-establishing formal diplomatic ties by opening “Interest Sections” in Washington and Havana. The talks have “gone unexpectedly well,” Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher reported on progress in August 1977. But as Washington and Havana turned to thornier issues, such as Cuba’s expanding military role in Africa and Castro’s demand that the embargo be lifted as a pre-condition for serious negotiations, communications between the two countries stalled. Impatient, Carter bypassed his own national security team and sent a personal emissary, Coca-Cola CEO Paul Austin, to speak with Fidel Castro in February 1978. “I have hoped it would be possible for you and me to move toward full normalization of relations,” read a signed note from Carter that Austin gave to Castro, “and I would like to see progress made in removing the obstacles that impede forward movement.” Austin returned with a note of noncommittal appreciation from Castro to Carter. But both sides subsequently agreed to restart the back-channel diplomacy to find common ground. The Secret Negotiations Within weeks of the Austin’s mission to Havana, Castro and Carter initiated a series of secret negotiating meetings that stretched from April 1978 to September 1980. Initial meetings took place in downtown Manhattan; subsequent talks were held in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Cuernavaca and in Havana with Castro himself. U.S. negotiators included NSC and State Department officials, notably Brzezinski’s Latin America specialist, Robert Pastor, and Under Secretary of State, Peter Tarnoff; Castro was represented by his top aide, José Luis Padron, and, at times, a military intelligence officer, Tony de la Guardia. (A State Department interpreter, Stephanie van Reigersberg, was also present at a number of the meetings and drafted the memoranda of conversations that recorded them for posterity.) Memorandum for the president Following the Castro-Austin meeting, U.S. and Cuban officials met secretly eleven times: **April 14, 1978: Deputy National Security Advisor David Aaron and NSC staff member Robert Gates met with Fidel Castro’s emissary José Luis Padrón at La Côte Basque restaurant in New York. (Gates secretly wore a wire under his clothing to record the conversation.) To revive the normalization effort, Cuba was prepared to release a large number of political prisoners, Aaron countered that Cuban military intervention in Africa was “the principal obstacle to an improvement.” **June 15, 1978: Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Newsom met with Padrón and Tony de la Guardia, a Cuban intelligence officer, at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. The talks continued to focus on a prisoner release and Cuba’s role in Africa. **July 5, 1978: Newsom and State Department Executive Secretary Peter Tarnoff met with Padrón and de la Guardia at Newsom’s home in Washington, D.C. The talks begin to focus on broader issues to be resolved, among them U.S. property claims and Cuba’s counterclaims generated by economic losses from the trade embargo. Padron reiterated that Cuba was willing to find “peaceful and negotiated solutions to the problem areas in Africa on a country-by-country basis.” Newsom told him that the United States would admit released prisoners, but he was not authorized to discuss the embargo. **August 8, 1978: Newsom and Aaron met with Padrón and José Antonio Arbesú, from the Communist Party Central Committee staff, at a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. At this meeting, Cuba’s calls for Puerto Rican independence at the United Nations became a point of contention, and Carter’s negotiators reiterated U.S. objections to Cuba’s military presence in Africa. Padrón replied that Cuba would always support independence for her “sister nation” and reminded Aaron that Cuba was in Africa at the invitation of “legally constituted governments.” When Padrón tried to raise the issue of the U.S. embargo, the U.S. side refused to discuss it. **October 28-29, 1978: Newsom and Aaron met with Padrón and Arbesú at the Hotel Villa del Conquistador, Cuernavaca, Mexico. The U.S. offered a new proposal of incrementally lifting the embargo: Aaron said that the United States was willing to remove restrictions on food and medicine if Cuba would withdraw from Angola and Ethiopia. Padrón repeated that Cuba’s role in Africa was not negotiable but he urged that their next meeting be in Havana so that Fidel Castro himself could participate. Letter from Carted to Castro **December 2-3, 1978: Under Secretary of State Peter Tarnoff and NSC Director for Latin America Robert Pastor met with Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, Communist Party Central Committee Secretary for Foreign Affairs Raúl Valdés Vivo, Padrón, and Arbesú at the Palace of the Revolution, Havana, Cuba. The talks focus on a proposed prisoner swap—several CIA agents imprisoned in Cuba in return for four imprisoned Puerto Rican nationalists in the U.S. (In September 1979, Carter commuted the sentences of the Puerto Ricans and Castro released the CIA agents.) Tarnoff reiterated U.S. concerns about Cuba’s role in Africa, and Rodríguez reiterated Cuba’s support for negotiated settlements to the conflicts there but stated that Cuba would never accede to U.S. demands. **December 3-4, 1978: Tarnoff and NSC Director for Latin America Robert Pastor met with President Fidel Castro, for more than five hours at the Palace of the Revolution, Havana, Cuba. Castro began by crediting President Carter who had “created a favorable atmosphere” for dialogue. But then “someone got the idea of fomenting agitation in regard to the presence of Cuban military and civilian personnel in Africa,” Castro complained. He refused the linkage between lifting the embargo and withdrawing Cuba’s troops in Africa. “We have never discussed with you the activities of the United States throughout the entire world,” Fidel pointed out. Perhaps it is because the United States is a great power, it feels it can do what it wants…. Perhaps it is idealistic of me, but I never accepted the universal prerogatives of the United States. I never accepted and never will accept the existence of a different law and different rules.” In his report to President Carter summarizing the meeting, Brzezinski wrote that “Castro was clearly speaking directly to you and he decided that this was the time for him to vent twenty years of rage which had been bottled up inside of him.” **January 16-17, 1980: Tarnoff, Pastor, and Wayne Smith, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Interests Section, meet with Fidel Castro, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, and Padrón, at the Palace of the Revolution, Havana, Cuba. After a yearlong hiatus in direct talks, U.S. officials revisit the dialogue with Castro. Most of the discussion centered on the deteriorating international situation—especially the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The U.S. delegation urged Cuba to denounce the invasion, but Castro refused, arguing that Soviet aid had been “a matter of life and death” for Cuba’s survival. The participants discussed Africa once again and Cuba’s support for revolutionary movements in Central America. Castro expressed Cuba’s willingness to withdraw Cuban troops from Angola if there was a negotiated peace settlement in Angola and Namibia. As the meeting concluded, Castro complained that the U.S. was encouraging boat hijackings by limiting legal migration and never prosecuting hijackers. If this continued, he advised, he would be “free of any obligation to control those who want to leave illegally”—a stark warning of the Mariel boatlift to come. **June 17-18, 1980: Tarnoff, Pastor, and Smith meet with Padrón, Arbesú, and Vice-Minister of Foreign Relations Ricardo Alarcón, at a Cuban government protocol house, Havana, Cuba. After several months of the Mariel boat lift, the dialogue has entered a crisis stage. Tarnoff opens the meeting affirming Washington's desire to “eventually normalize relations,” but the “pressing issue” of the Mariel migration crisis had to be resolved first, and improvement in relations would still depend on Cuba responding to U.S. concerns about its relationship with the Soviet Union and its role in Africa and Central America. Padrón expressed “dissatisfaction and frustration” that the U.S. would only discuss the issues it was interested in and not Cuba’s, especially the embargo. The talks made no progress toward resolving Mariel. When Pastor and Tarnoff return to Washington, they report to Carter that the dialogue with Cuba has reached a “dead-end.” **September 3, 1980: Carter sends his personal emissary, Paul Austin, back to Havana with a concrete proposal to end the Mariel boatlift in return for a promise of comprehensive talks after the U.S. elections take place in November. But unbeknownst to Carter, Austin has developed Alzheimer’s disease and is no longer a trustworthy interlocutor. Instead of presenting the proposal, Austin tells Fidel that there should be a summit between Carter and Castro and that Carter is ready to lift the embargo before Christmas. **September 12, 1980: Tarnoff met with Fidel Castro and Padrón in Havana, Cuba. Tarnoff began by explaining that proposals made during the September trip by Coca Cola CEO J. Paul Austin did not represent U.S. policy. President Carter, Tarnoff said, would be willing to open a broad dialogue with Cuba on the embargo and normalizing relations if the migration crisis could be resolved. President Castro responded that he would take Carter’s word “on good faith” and would close the port of Mariel without a “formal commitment” on broader talks, which he subsequently did. Post Presidency Diplomacy The planned revival of talks to restore relations after the election never took place because Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan, a strident cold warrior who opposed normalization of ties to Cuba. In the interview with Kornbluh and LeoGrande, the former president expressed his frustration at the lost opportunity. “I think in retrospect, knowing what I know since I left the White House, I should have gone ahead and been more flexible in dealing with Cuba and established full diplomatic relations,” he reflected. Former President Carter visits Fidel Castro in March 2011 Former President Carter visits Fidel Castro in March 2011. But during his long and active post-presidency, Carter remained engaged in diplomacy with Cuba. In August 1994, amidst another mass exodus known as the balsero crisis, Castro reached out to Carter to be an interlocutor with the Clinton White House to bring an end to the dangerous flow of small, flimsy rafts and boats carrying Cubans fleeing the island in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. For five days, Carter played the role of secret intermediary, and mediator, between Washington and Havana. But after he spoke to President Clinton and suggested “minimum concessions” to key Cuban demands, Clinton unceremoniously removed the former president as a go-between, as a letter he wrote to Castro posted today reveals. “My hope is that you and American officials will be successful in finding some common ground on which to resolve the present crisis,” Carter’s message concluded, “and to prepare for a future resolution of long-term differences.” Eight years later, in May 2002, Carter became the first U.S. president since the revolution—former or sitting—to visit Cuba; Castro met Carter on the tarmac, welcomed him with a red carpet as a Cuban band played the American national anthem. While in Cuba, Carter gave a nationally televised speech on human rights and democracy. “And later, to my surprise,” he recalled in the interview posted today, “they printed the entire text of my speech, and also the questions and answers, some of which were very deleterious to Castro, in Granma. It took [up] the whole paper. And the day after that, as we traveled around in Cuba, it was amazing how many people had a copy of that in their hand or in their pocket. So that was one thing that [Castro] did that I thought was very nice.” Carter returned to Cuba in March 2011 for an exploratory effort to obtain the freedom of imprisoned USAID subcontractor Alan Gross. He was allowed to meet with Gross; and also met with the wives of the “Cuban Five”—five Cuban spies who had been incarcerated in the United States for over 13 years. During a press conference in Havana, he called for the release of the spies—and Alan Gross. He also publicly denounced the U.S. trade embargo as “a serious mistake that my government continues to make” and called for U.S. economic sanctions to be lifted “immediately.” Then 86 years old, Carter remained committed to using his unique stature as the 39th president of the United States to pursue a goal that dated to the beginning of his presidency—a rapprochement with Cuba. “My dream is to see this issue resolved before I die,” Carter told his Cuban hosts during a private meeting in Havana. “I don’t know if that will happen.” The Documents ebb 882 doc 1 Document 1 Interview with Jimmy Carter on Cuba, The Carter Center, Atlanta, Georgia, July 23, 2004 [Transcript and audio recording] Jul 23, 2004 Source Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande meeting with Jimmy Carter In an interview with the authors of the book, Back Channel to Cuba, former President Jimmy Carter recalled his motivations and intentions in attempting to normalize relations with Cuba. “I felt that it was time for us to have completely normal relations with Cuba,” he told the authors. “And I felt then, as I do now, that the best way to bring about a change in its Communist regime was to have open trade and commerce, and visitation, and diplomatic relations with Cuba.” Carter also criticized the then restrictions imposed by the George W. Bush administration on travel and trade with Cuba as “restraints on American civil liberties.” He made it clear that he believed the embargo should be lifted: “Why can’t I sell my peanuts to Cuba?” he asked. “Why can’t my Sunday school class take an unrestricted visit to Cuba?” Audio file ebb 882 doc 2 Document 2 CIA Intelligence Information Cable, “Cuba Desire to Begin Direct Negotiations for Renewed Relations with the United States as Soon as Possible,” Secret, February 22, 1977 Feb 22, 1977 Source Source Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol XXIII One month after Carter’s inauguration, the CIA reports that Fidel Castro is ready for direct talks with the United States to normalize diplomatic and economic relations. Based on information obtained from a Cuban military attaché in Latin America, according to the CIA cable, “the Cuban hierarchy is in unanimous agreement that negotiations with the U.S. should begin as soon as possible.” ebb 882 doc 3 Document 3 State Department, Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC17, Cuba, Secret, March 8, 1977 Mar 8, 1977 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library Pursuant to a request from National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the State Department drafts a comprehensive 17-page overview of the interests, issues and implementation for pursuing normalized relations with Cuba. The document, which serves as a basis for a Policy Review Committee meeting the next day, covers the advantages and disadvantages of the “extremely complex and nettlesome” process of normalizing ties. Among the advantages it lists: “Lessening of Cuban dependence on the Soviet Union,” giving Cuba “added incentives to cease its foreign adventures in Africa,” and demonstrating U.S. “support for the universalist principles in diplomatic relations and make a major gesture to the Third World which sees our posture toward Cuba as symbolic of great-power aggression.” Normalized relations would also “enable us to pursue important U.S. interests with Cuba such as human rights” and “open up trade opportunities in a relatively small but natural market for us.” ebb 882 doc 4 Document 4 NSC, “Summary and Conclusions NSC/PRC Meeting—Cuba,” Secret, March 9, 1977 Mar 9, 1977 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library One week before President Carter signs a presidential directive on normalizing bilateral ties with Cuba, his top national security aides discuss a strategy of negotiating a rapprochement during a Policy Review Committee (PRC) meeting. These PRC meeting minutes reflect a focus on quid pro quos and step-by-step reciprocity. “All agreed,” according to a summary by Secretary Vance, “that the United States Government should begin talks with the Cubans in a measured and careful way, keeping in mind that the chip of eliminating the embargo is the ultimate one, and we should play that one well.” ebb 882 doc 5 Document 5 Presidential Directive, Presidential Directive NSC/6, Subject: Cuba, March 15, 1977 (Secret) (Previously posted) Mar 15, 1977 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library Based on the conclusions of the PRC meeting, President Carter issues an unprecedented NSC directive: “I have concluded we should attempt to achieve normalization of our relations with Cuba,” it states. Carter’s NSC directive authorizes “direct and confidential talks” with Castro’s emissaries. “Our objective,” according to the directive, “is to set in motion a process which will lead to the reestablishment of diplomatic relations…and will advance the interests of the United States….” Initial talks lead quickly to the opening of “Interest Sections” in Washington and Havana, a step short of full diplomatic ties. But the back-channel negotiations eventually break down over disagreements about Cuba’s role in Africa. ebb 882 doc 6 Document 6 White House, “President’s Meeting with Senators James Abourezk and George McGovern, Confidential, March 19, 1977 Mar 19, 1977 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library As the Carter administration gears up for talks with the Cubans, Carter meets with two liberal senators, McGovern and Abourezk, who convey Castro’s thinking to him. McGovern reports on a five-hour conversation he recently had with Castro. The meeting provides an early sense of both Castro’s position and Carter’s own focus on issues he hopes the Cubans will address to normalize ties, including the release of political prisoners and the presence of 20,000 Cuban troops in Africa. McGovern reports that Castro had “promised him that the troops were coming out and he does not envision any other military activities in Africa.” But McGovern also reports that the Cubans want the embargo at least partially lifted as a pre-condition for substantive talks on normal relations. During the meeting, McGovern asks Carter if he will support a bill McGovern is offering to lift the embargo on food and medicines. Carter replies that such an initiative, “would not cause me concern,” although in the end, he did not support it. ebb 882 doc 7 Document 7 White House, Policy Review Committee Meeting, Cuba, Secret, August 3, 1977 Aug 3, 1977 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library At this PRC meeting on the initial round of negotiations with Cuba, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher reports that the talks have “gone unexpectedly well.” He characterizes the Cuban approach as “a very businesslike manner” and relates that Cuba has given the opening for the new Interest Sections, scheduled for September 1, 1977, “high priority.” The meeting focuses on options for further negotiations that could eventually lead to lifting the embargo—“our biggest bargaining chip”—in return for a Cuban commitment to restrain its international support for revolution and anti-colonial struggles in Africa. ebb 882 doc 8 Document 8 White House, Carter Letter to Fidel Castro, carried by Paul Austin, February 7, 1978 Feb 7, 1978 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library In an effort to revive negotiations between Washington and Havana, President Carter sends a direct note to Fidel Castro, using a friend and donor from Atlanta, Coca Cola CEO J. Paul Austin, as his special emissary. “I have hoped it would be possible for you and me to move toward full normalization of relations, and I would like to see progress made in removing the obstacles that impede forward movement,” Carter appeals to Castro, asking him to use Austin to send a message back to the White House. Castro does send a message of appreciation back with Austin but remains noncommittal on the issue of advancing the talks. This is the first of three secret trips to Havana Austin takes as a special emissary for Carter. Belatedly, as President Carter revealed in his interview with Kornbluh and LeoGrande, White House officials realize that Austin is suffering from early signs of Alzheimer’s and is making unauthorized proposals to Castro about holding a summit with Carter. ebb 882 doc 9 Document 9 State Department, Memorandum from Secretary Vance to President Carter, “Contact with Castro’s Representative, Jose Luis Padron,” Secret/Nodis, June 19, 1978 (Meeting Summary attached) Jun 19, 1978 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library Secretary Cyrus Vance conveys to President Carter a summary of a secret June 1978 meeting between State Department Under Secretary for Political Affairs David Newsom and Castro emissary José Luis Padrón. The five-hour conversation was held at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City; it is the second of nine secret back-channel meetings between Cuban and U.S. officials during the Carter Administration that took place in New York, Atlanta, Cuernavaca, and Havana. The meeting covers some “broader aspects of U.S.-Cuban relations” that Padrón had discussed at his first meeting with Deputy National Security Advisor David L. Aaron in April but also focuses on the Cubans’ response to a U.S. request to release political prisoners. Padrón has lists of some 1,600 prisoners and their dependents that Castro has decided to release and allow to leave the island. (According to the meeting summary, Padrón discussed 4000 such prisoners and dependents.) In his cover memo, Vance asks the President to authorize the involvement of Attorney General Griffin Bell and the Justice Department to address processing and immigration procedures to handle so many Cuban exiles coming to the United States. He advises Carter that “we should move promptly to give the Cubans a definitive response on whether we are prepared to receive these people.” ebb 882 doc 10 Document 10 National Security Council, Brzezinski Memorandum for President Carter, “Conversations in Havana,” Top Secret/Eyes Only, ca. December 19, 1978 Dec 19, 1978 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library At the invitation of the Cuban government, in early December 1978, NSC Latin America specialist Robert Pastor and State Department Executive Secretary Peter Tarnoff traveled to Havana for “five full hours of discussions” with Castro. (The two also meet with Vice-President Carlos Rafael Rodríguez.) On December 19, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski reported that the main subject of the meeting was Cuba’s military role in Africa as an obstacle to improved relations. Castro “completely understood the message which Tarnoff and Pastor had brought and he didn't like it,” Brzezinski reports. “The transcript picks up the precision of his arguments and the importance he gives to details, but it fails to convey the passion or the force which Castro, who surprisingly speaks quite softly, brought to his arguments. Castro was clearly speaking directly to you,” Brzezinski advises Carter, “and he decided that this was the time for him to vent twenty years of rage which had been bottled up inside of him.” ebb 882 doc 11 Document 11 The White House, Memorandum to President Carter from Robert Pastor and Peter Tarnoff, “Cuban Discussions, June 17, 1980 – Summary and Next Steps,” Top Secret/Sensitive/Eyes Only, ca. June 20, 1980 Jun 20, 1980 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library In this memorandum reporting on another secret trip to Cuba in the midst of the Mariel immigration crisis, Pastor and Tarnoff inform President Carter that negotiations to normalize relations have come to “a dead end.” The three years of confidential talks “have proven useful in helping us understand Cuba’s views on a wide range of issues,” they report. But after seven hours of meetings with senior Cuban officials in Havana, “we have clearly reached a dead-end in resolving problems.” The Cubans have rejected conditionality on withdrawing from Africa to move normalization forward, their summary concludes. “In our conversations with the Cubans, we held out the prospect of improved relations with us—including moves toward lifting the embargo—if Cuba moderated its behavior in several specific areas of foreign policy interest to the U.S. Castro has now indicated unequivocally that he will not accept such linkage.” ebb 882 doc 12 Document 12 State Department, Memorandum from Secretary Muskie to President Carter, “The Austin-Castro Conversation,” Secret/Sensitive/Nodis, September 8, 1980 [with attached “Talking points for Emissary to use in Cuba”] Sep 8, 1980 Source Jimmy Carter Presidential Library In September 1980, Carter called on his friend Paul Austin to carry another message to Fidel Castro—a negotiating proposal to end the Mariel boatlift that brought over 125,000 Cubans migrants to the U.S. The immigration crisis broke out in April after a bus commandeered by Cubans broke through the gates of the Peruvian Embassy. After the Cuban government withdrew its guards from the Embassy, some 10,000 Cubans sought asylum on the Embassy grounds, confronting Castro with a major spectacle. On April 20, he declared that all Cubans who wanted to leave could depart from the port of Mariel, where Cuban Americans could come pick them up. As hundreds of boats ferried “Marielitos” to the United States, Carter provided Austin with “talking points”—a set of proposals to Fidel to halt the boatlift, in return for a U.S. commitment, after the 1980 election, to “conversations…that could be broad enough to cover all aspects of our bilateral relationships, and our mutual concerns.” Secretary of State Edmund Muskie met with Austin only a few days after he returned from Havana; after debriefing the Coca Cola chairman, Muskie sent this troubling report to President Carter. Austin seemed to have ignored his instructions on Mariel, instead telling Castro that Carter wanted to hold a summit before Christmas and “that President Carter was prepared to proceed with the lifting of the embargo against Cuba and to make available a wider range of American medicines to Cuba by the end of the year.” U.S. officials, Carter would later acknowledge, realized that Austin was showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease that had compromised his mission. Almost immediately, the State Department dispatched Peter Tarnoff to Havana to deliver the original proposal to halt the Mariel boatlift and warn Cuban officials to disregard what Austin had said because his visit had been “a private undertaking.” ebb 882 doc 13 Document 13 White House, “Situation Room Checklist” [Summary of Peter Tarnoff Talks with Fidel Castro], Secret, September 13, 1980. Sep 13, 1980 Source Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, Vol XXIII, Mexico, Cuba and the Caribbean, p. 268 Peter Tarnoff’s report on his “most positive” meeting with Fidel Castro on September 12, 1980, is summarized in this White House Situation Room “checklist.” According to the report, Castro has offered a series of gestures to address U.S. concerns about over 100 Cubans who have taken refuge in the U.S. Interest Section and has agreed to finally shut down the Mariel boatlift. With the 1980 Presidential election between Carter and Ronald Reagan approaching, “Castro concluded by asking that the President be told that he was taking these steps as part of a gradual, deliberate process to reduce tensions. These measures were unilateral and unconditional. Castro did not expect any direct reciprocity or firm commitment from the U.S.” ebb 882 doc 14 Document 14 Jimmy Carter, Letter to Fidel Castro Concerning Role as Secret Intermediary During the Balsero Crisis, Confidential, August 28, 1994 Aug 28, 1994 Source William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh, Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana, UNC Press, 2015, p. 288 On August 23, 1994, Fidel Castro reached out to Jimmy Carter to serve as a mediator/ interlocutor with the Clinton White House to resolve the massive exodus of Cubans known as the “balsero crisis.” Carter agreed to help, obtaining authorization from Under Secretary of State Peter Tarnoff to facilitate back-channel talks to find a way to end the immigration crisis. A unique phone tree chain of communication was established between Castro’s office, key members of the exile community in Miami, Carter and the White House; for five days messages flowed back and forth between Washington and Havana. On August 26, Carter spoke directly to Clinton to outline the issues that the Cubans wanted to discuss and resolve, and suggesting what Carter called “minimum concessions” to successfully move forward; the next day he spoke to Castro directly to set up a meeting in New York between U.S. and Cuban negotiators to negotiate a solution. But on August 28, Vice President Al Gore called Carter to tell him that “an alternative communication channel had been established” and told the former president to “refrain from further participation.” Carter then sent this letter to Castro, via the Cuban mission at the United Nations, explaining that he could no longer serve as a mediator. “My hope is that you and American officials will be successful in finding some common ground on which to resolve the present crisis,” Carter’s message concluded, “and to prepare for a future resolution of long-term differences.”