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.”

Bolivia Is Fighting To Get Out Of An Economic And Political Crisis

Sink or Swim Bolivia A community of ethnic Aymara shamans in Bolivia called amautas, or “wise ones” in the indigenous Quechua language, are refusing to abandon their cliffside homes. Called “suicide shacks,” these huts in the Andean city of El Alto sit a few feet from the edge of a steep cliff. Heavy rains and other weather phenomena threaten to erode the few feet between them and oblivion. Officials are now determining whether they should force the shamans out to save their lives, the BBC reported. The situation could be a metaphor for the precarious situation in the South American country, as Bolivians debate who should lead them out of their current economic and political crises. Former Bolivian President Evo Morales is seeking to return to office by running in the August 2025 presidential election on the campaign pledge of making the country great again. An ethnic Aymara who was the country’s first elected indigenous president, Morales held office for 14 years. He pursued a leftist agenda that redistributed the country’s vast mineral and other resources, spreading prosperity – at least temporarily. But Morales resigned from office in 2019 after protests over a disputed election and his attempts to circumvent term limits. He claimed he was ousted in a coup but wanted to tone down the violence from protests arising from allegations that his rival had meddled in the election. Morales then went into exile in Mexico. He has since returned to the country and now faces charges of statutory rape that he says are politically motivated. Bolivia’s top court has ruled that he can’t run for office again, Al Jazeera reported, but he appears to be preparing to try. “They don’t want me to be the candidate because they know I’ll win,” Morales said in an interview with the Associated Press. “We’re in a state of total siege, morally, legally, and politically.” Meanwhile, Morales’ former protégé, President Luis Arce, who is running for reelection, is struggling to improve the country’s dismal economy, Reuters explained. Inflation is at a 10-year high, natural gas exports are decreasing as old fields have dried up and new ones remain unexplored, the central bank is bereft of foreign reserves, and fuel imports are up. The fuel crisis is becoming especially destabilizing, noted Voice of America. Protests have been breaking out between Morales and Arce supporters who both claim their man should lead the country, the New York Times added. Perhaps most importantly, the country’s socialist government lacks the revenues it would like to parcel out to the people. Since Arce served as Morales’ economy minister, both are responsible for the situation, which is spiraling, argued Global Americans. “Shortages and price increases; falling purchasing power and rising poverty; deterioration of the social mood,” Gabriel Espinoza, a former director at Bolivia’s central bank, told the Economist. “The question is when and how this will morph into conflict in the streets.”

Four Young Boys Killed in Ecuador

Guayaquil Grief Ecuador Ecuadoran officials identified four charred bodies as the remains of four boys who went missing in early December near a military base, in a case posing a challenge to President Daniel Noboa and his war on criminal gangs, the Guardian reported. The boys, all of them Black and between the ages of 11 and 15, were residents of Las Malvinas, a poor district of the country’s largest city, Guayaquil. The children were returning from playing soccer on Dec. 8, when they were allegedly beaten and taken into custody by soldiers from the nearby Taura air base. After being apprehended, the four were allegedly released 26 miles away, late at night, in an unfamiliar area. Their remains were found on Christmas Eve. The Ministry of Defense, which initially denied involvement, later said the boys were apprehended because of their involvement in a robbery, a claim prosecutors say lacks evidence. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense has also suggested that the boys could have been victims of organized crime after being released by the military. Public prosecutors are now investigating whether the military is responsible for the deaths. More than a dozen soldiers are in custody. The incident has led to widespread outrage in Ecuador, where kidnapping, extortion, and murders have become commonplace, CBS News reported. Hundreds of people have protested, demanding the soldiers be prosecuted. This incident comes amid attempts by Noboa to defeat criminal gangs that have gained in power and have been terrorizing the country over the past few years. However, analysts say the case is a test of the president’s hardline policies – he came to power last year on a pledge to bring security back to Ecuador.

Chinese Workers Saved From Slave Like Conditions In Brasil

Chinese workers saved from 'slave-like conditions' in Brazil accreditation Comments Comments gifting Gift article add bookmark Bookmark 02:47 Chinese workers have ben saved from slave-like conditions building a BYD electric car factory in Brazil this week. (Anadolou/ Getty Images) Chinese workers have ben saved from slave-like conditions building a BYD electric car factory in Brazil this week. (Anadolou/ Getty Images) For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page. More than 160 Chinese workers have been saved from "slave-like conditions" in Brazil, where they had been building an electric car factory for Chinese giant BYD, officials said Tuesday. BYD's Brazilian subsidiary said in a statement late Monday it has "broken with immediate effect" its contract with the company responsible for the work on the site, Jinjiang Construction Brazil Ltd. The site is located in Camacari, in the northeast state of Bahia and, when completed, will be BYD's biggest electric car plant outside Asia, with a production capacity of 150 000 vehicles per year. Work on part of the site was suspended by order of Bahia's public ministry for works (MPT). Since November that state ministry and other authorities have been conducting inspections which the MPT said identified "163 workers who appeared to be in slave-like conditions with the Jinjiang company providing services for BYD." An MPT spokesperson told AFP that all those workers identified were Chinese nationals. In a statement, the MPT said it had found "an alarming situation of precariousness" where employees were being kept in "degrading working conditions." "In one of the accommodations, workers slept on beds without mattresses and had no wardrobes for their personal effects, which were mixed together with food supplies," it said. The MPT also found there was just one bathroom per 31 workers, "which forced them to get up at 4:00 to line up to be able to get ready before leaving to start work at 5:30." Once on the site, "the workers were exposed to intense solar radiation, presenting visible signs of skin damage." The MPT said it suspected "forced labor" had been occurring, with the workers' passports confiscated and their employer "retaining 60 percent of their salary, and them receiving the other 40 percent in Chinese money." Authorities have organized an online hearing Thursday so that BYD and Jinjiang "can present the necessary provisions guaranteeing minimal accommodation conditions" and the rectification of the violations detected. BYD's Brazilian subsidiary said in its statement that "it does not tolerate violations of Brazilian law and human dignity," adding that it had immediately transferred the 163 workers to stay in hotels in the region You have invested in the future

50 Years-Mexico And The Legacy Of The Dirty War

Fifty Years of Silence: Mexico Faces the Legacy of its Dirty War coffins on the square Image courtesy Jorge León / Archivo Histórico del PRD, reproduced in Fue el Estado (1965-1990). Country’s First National Truth Commission Releases Monumental Reports on State Violence Government Archives Played Essential Role in Investigating Past Abuses Declassified Documents Reveal U.S. Prioritized Stability of Mexican Regime over Human Rights Concerns Published: Dec 20, 2024 Briefing Book # 879 Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman Special thanks to Salvador Leyva and Laura Sánchez Ley For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu Subjects Cold War – General Human Rights and Genocide Regions Mexico and Central America Project Mexico Commissioner Eugenia Allier Montaño presents the report “Verdades Innegables. Por un México sin impunidad” at the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco in Mexico City, October 10, 2024. Commissioners Abel Barrera Hernández, David Fernández Dávalos, and Carlos A. Pérez Ricart present the report “Fue el Estado (1965-1990)” at the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco in Mexico City, August 16, 2024. It was the State (1965-1990), Volume 1, Chapter 1 (in English) Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, It was the State (1965-1990), Volume 1, Chapter 1 (in English) Undeniable Truths: For a Mexico Without Impunity, Volume 1, Executive Summary (in English) Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, Undeniable Truths: For a Mexico Without Impunity, Volume 1, Executive Summary (in English) Washington, D.C., December 20, 2024—Half a century ago, Mexico was convulsed by state violence and social upheaval. The year 1974 witnessed some of the most emblematic human rights abuses to occur during the country’s long-running Dirty War: the forced disappearance of community activist Rosendo Radilla Pacheco, the killing of revolutionary guerrilla leader Lucio Cabañas, and the Mexican military’s use of “death flights” to eliminate suspected subversives by throwing their bodies from planes into the Pacific Ocean. These and thousands of other grave human rights violations were documented in two monumental and comprehensive reports released this year by Mexico’s first major truth commission. Today, the National Security Archive is publishing a selection of declassified U.S. documents about the Dirty War, along with translated excerpts from the two reports in order to give English-readers a sense of the scope and methodologies encompassed in the truth commission’s investigations. Taken together, the materials offer a clearer picture than has ever been available of the “systematic and widespread” human rights abuses committed by Mexican intelligence, military, police, and parastate forces that targeted “broad sectors of the population” between 1965 and 1990.[1] Mexico’s government did not launch this massive transitional justice project on its own initiative. The impulse for national reckoning came from survivors and collectives of family members and activists. It was their decades-long persistence in defying the state’s permanent silence and demanding answers that finally led then-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador to agree to create the Commission. On October 6, 2021, the president published his decree establishing the Commission for Access to Truth, Historical Clarification and the Promotion of Justice for Grave Human Rights Violations committed between 1965 and 1990 (CoVEH, in Spanish), which in turn launched five working groups to grapple with different dimensions of the project. While the Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification was responsible for investigating abuses and producing the truth commission’s report, other groups examined the promotion of justice, the search for the disappeared, reparations, and the promotion of memory and non-repetition.[2] In many countries in Latin America, the end of the Cold War spurred a profound reflection about the state’s role in political violence, and how it was rationalized by anti-communist national security and counterinsurgency concerns. By contrast, Mexican efforts were anemic, few, and far between. The earliest official initiative to investigate forced disappearance during the Dirty War was carried out by the National Human Rights Commission in 2001, decades after the fact.[3] Successive governments refused calls for a truth commission, paradigmatic cases such as the 1968 Tlatelolco student massacre remained chronically unresolved, and a special prosecutor assigned to investigate historical human rights crimes closed his office after five years without holding anyone accountable for anything. In this instance, the scale of the truth commission’s efforts was unprecedented, and the CoVEH completed its mandate with a whirlwind of milestones, conclusions, and recommendations for the future. In its Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH,the Commission points out some of the achievements of the enormous project. The working group on the Promotion of Justice led Mexico’s Attorney General to create a new “Special Investigations and Litigation Team” to consider prosecuting dozens of criminal human rights cases from the Dirty War era. On the Search for the Disappeared, the group launched a massive database called Sistema Angelus to organize and make accessible thousands of government records, and prepared plans to exhume cemeteries and potential clandestine burial sites on military installations. The Reparations working group contributed to a registry of more than 2,500 victims of the Dirty War who may be eligible for future compensation. And the Memory and Non-repetition group organized public forums about the Dirty War, issued publications, and helped create a memory center at the Circular de Morelia in Mexico City, a former Dirección Federal de Seguridad (Federal Security Directorate, DFS) building where detainees were tortured.[4] The work of the Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification – while also extraordinary, was complicated by internal differences among the five commissioners. A central friction had to do with how the Mechanism identified the scope of repression – whether political violence was limited to armed revolutionary groups and militant activists, or whether the Dirty War included abuses committed against more diverse sectors, such as journalists, indigenous leaders, and LGBTQ activists. After the Mechanism was established in 2021, one commissioner resigned (historian Aleida García Aguirre). Three commissioners – Abel Barrera, David Fernández, and Carlos Pérez Ricart – chose to define the universe of Dirty War victims much more broadly than historically recognized. That left a single commissioner, Eugenia Allier, to assemble a team focused on traditional categories of victims: guerrillas, student activists, dissident labor and union organizers, and human rights defenders. As a result of these differences, the reports that resulted from the two separate investigations pursued the same objective – the historical clarification of the Dirty War – but landed on very distinct conclusions. Allier’s emphasis on the Mexican State’s intent to destroy armed revolutionary groups such as Lucio Cabañas’ Party of the Poor in Guerrero focused on the essential political nature of the Dirty War; its anti-communist, counterinsurgent objectives and its determination to “suffocate and eliminate any form of political dissidence and popular protest.”[5] Her team’s report, Undeniable Truths: For a Mexico Without Impunity, reveals a multiplicity of plans coordinated between the Army, police forces, and intelligence agencies that was designed to hunt down and detain or kill suspected subversives around the country, including, for example, the “Rosa de los Vientos” plan, which targeted members of the radical 23 September Communist League during the late 1970s. The report contains new details about the location of clandestine detention centers, the widespread use of torture, and the forced disappearance of victims. It lists 1,103 missing or disappeared persons, and names more than 2,000 public officials “involved in the repressive system,” including 200 DFS members. It analyzes the military’s use of “death flights” in Guerrero state, based on testimonies and archival documents. It identifies previously unknown military units involved in repression, the systematic use of sexual violence during counterinsurgency operations, the State’s reliance on hired thugs to injure and kill student protesters, and its permanent surveillance and repression of dissident labor activists and human rights defenders. The other team’s report, It was the State (1965-1990), determined that the targets of the state’s counterinsurgency campaigns were not limited to guerrillas or student and labor activists, but included a sprawling range of social actors and sometimes entire communities. The commissioners behind this analysis – Barrera, Fernández and Pérez Ricart – concluded that repression and political violence perpetrated by state security agencies aimed to crush social mobilization among “at least eleven groups of victims who until now remained invisible.”[6] Altogether, the team identified more than 8,500 victims of repression. This “new narrative,” as the report calls it, describes a uniquely intolerant State, which used espionage, harassment, imprisonment, torture, rape, forced disappearance, and execution against a wide array of marginalized groups, including refugee and indigenous communities, Afro-Mexicans, and religious dissidents. This conclusion is an innovation in the historiography of political violence in Mexico, and one that may help to explain the ferocity of the ongoing violence and inequality that Mexico continues to experience. At the same time, the decision to widen the lens to encompass sprawling categories of victims dilutes the specificity of the State’s political counterinsurgency objectives during the Dirty War: when the security apparatus of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) set out to annihilate revolution. The perspective expressed in It was the State (1965-1990) was not entirely welcomed by historians of the Dirty War era or by human rights organizations. The Commission’s executive body itself, the CoVEH, criticized the decision of the three commissioners, writing that their report: [. . .] exceeded the objectives of the Commission. The report investigated human rights violations that were not necessarily related to State violence within the context of counterinsurgency, as well as episodes of violence that took place after 1990, even spanning circumstances from recent years. [. . .] The concern that led the [Mechanism’s] commissioners to delve into these subjects in their report is understandable, but the mandate of the Commission is clear, as were the demands of the victims’ families, survivors, and collectives with respect to knowing the truth and achieving justice for the atrocities committed through State violence in 1965 to 1990. Important sections of the [Mechanism’s] final report did not address these historic demands.[7] That said, the two separate reports do have much in common; both excoriate the Mexican State’s silence and persistent impunity around Dirty War human rights crimes. As It was the State (1965-1990) put it, “The problem is that these violations have been denied or justified by the perpetrators and by the State that has sheltered them. The point is not so much a lack of knowledge as a refusal by those involved to acknowledge the existence of these atrocities, their unjustifiable nature, and their own role in them. This is a political question.”[8] And both reports agreed that it was the victims themselves and their families who brought about Mexico’s first real transitional justice effort. Undeniable Truths contains an entire section devoted to highlighting “the importance of the struggle for memory, truth and justice that has been sustained for decades by relatives, survivors, groups, and companions of survivors of this period of violence. Throughout these years of struggle, they have not only encountered the State’s response of denial, silencing, impunity for those responsible, and inaction in the face of their demands, but also persecution, surveillance, harassment, repression, continuous insult and revictimization. In this sense, this Report recognizes them as the principal guardians of memory, who with their struggle and resistance have sustained their demand for justice and prevented the erasure of the crimes committed by the Mexican State during this period.”[9] Both reports also address the vital role that archives played in shaping their understanding of the Dirty War. As part of the government’s mandate for the Commission, investigators were supposed to have full and unfettered access to state records from the era, and certain agencies complied without a problem.[10] But the issue quickly became a source of conflict when the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) and the Center for National Intelligence (CNI) refused to turn over relevant files. The Mechanism denounced this publicly and eventually released six separate “technical reports” detailing the missing documentation and the nature of the government’s secrecy. The Mechanism’s objections led to growing anger on the part of President López Obrador, who slammed the investigators as liars, declaring that Sedena had turned over all records and that the government was committed to “clarify everything, to hide absolutely nothing, to make everything transparent….” The government’s hostility towards the Commission was even more evident when the Washington Post revealed that historian and CoVEH coordinator, Camilo Vicente Ovalle, had been targeted by the Israeli spyware Pegasus since at least December 2022. Pegasus contracts were controlled by the Mexican Armed Forces, which meant that the same Army denying access to critical files for Mexico’s first national truth commission was secretly spying on the man leading the investigations. Alejandro Encinas, former undersecretary for human rights and president of the CoVEH, was also targeted by Pegasus. When the Commission concluded its work in September of this year, outgoing President López Obrador held no public reception or unifying presentation, but left the Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification to deliver its two reports to the public on its own. Despite López Obrador’s abandonment of the truth commission, the CoVEH remains an unprecedented achievement for transitional justice in Mexico. The reports the Mechanism produced – more than 5,000 pages together – reveal a trove of new information about how State agencies planned, implemented, and covered up the atrocities of the Dirty War. They build on decades of work from family members, human rights advocates, and scholars, and will be central to future studies about the era for years to come. The Mechanism’s investigations help explain how the legacy of past impunity has grown into the monstrous injustice that Mexico lives with today. They take accountability seriously and acknowledge the power that memory, truth-telling, and transparency have to vindicate the lives lost and damaged by the State’s cruelty. The National Security Archive will continue to mine these two massive reports for future postings and commentary about the Dirty War. The National Security Archive’s Mexico Project curated a special collection of 240 declassified U.S. documents and provided expert analysis to support the Mechanism’s investigations. While we continue to push for further declassification, records related to key events in the history of the Dirty War reveal a wide variability in the quality of U.S. government reporting on Mexico. Some documents contain detailed and critical analysis from political officers at the U.S. Embassy. For example, a confidential cable from 1965 assessed a surprise attack by a band of guerrillas from the Ejército Popular Revolucionario Mexicano (EPRM) on the Mexican Army garrison in Ciudad Madera, Chihuahua. The Embassy determined the violence would likely worsen as the government had given “no evidence to date” that it was addressing the legitimate concerns of small farmers in the area. (Document 1) Other records exhibit a remarkable degree of trust in the Mexican security forces to maintain order, even after significant episodes of state violence such as the Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi student massacres. The National Security Archive has posted extensively on Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi and published hundreds of declassified government documents related to the violence against student protestors. Documents from U.S. consulates provided invaluable granular reporting for the truth commission’s investigations. A confidential cable from the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey reported on the visit of three top Nuevo León security officials in 1967 to the AID International Police Academy in the United States. This document was reproduced in the It was the State (1965-1990) report as evidence of U.S. assistance for the “professionalization” of state security forces in counterinsurgency tactics. (Document 4)[11] The United States closely followed Mexico’s growing armed guerrilla movement, as they considered the country a frontline in the Cold War and the hemispheric battle against communism. While U.S. officials maintained a watchful eye over the activities of groups like the Party of the Poor in Guerrero, a top secret National Intelligence Daily article from the CIA concluded in 1974 that the insurgency was a “nuisance” and not a substantial threat to the stability of the Mexican regime, despite the “massive application of military manpower” deployed to combat the guerrillas. (Document 7)[12] The U.S. also monitored developments within the military, including key personnel changes and appointments. A secret Intelligence Information cable from the CIA established that General Francisco Quirós Hermosillo, who moved to third in command of Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense in 1980, was the former head of the Brigada Blanca, the “extra legal anti-terrorist organization,”. The Brigada Blanca was a brutal intelligence and operational unit responsible for forced disappearances, torture, and assassinations of suspected subversives. Quirós Hermosillo has been named an intellectual author in the military’s “death flights” in Guerrero. (Document 13) The records published today provide a sense of the concerns and priorities of U.S. foreign policy during Mexico’s Dirty War. The documents make clear the United States government valued the Mexican regime’s stability over all else, and U.S. reporting justified human rights violations as a necessary evil to contain the threat of communism. The Documents ebb 878 doc 1 Document 1 Armed Attack on the Garrison at Ciudad Madera, and Related Matters Oct 9, 1965 Source U.S. Embassy in Mexico, Confidential cable The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reports on an assault on the Mexican Army’s garrison in Ciudad Madera, Chihuahua, by a band of guerrillas from the Ejército Popular Revolucionario Mexicano (EPRM). According to the cable, after the garrison’s soldiers quashed the attack, killing ten of the EPRM’s members, the government announced that “tranquility is expected to return to the area.” The embassy believes the source of the conflict is rooted in “an impoverished peasantry and a bitter land struggle” and determines it will likely worsen as the government has given “no evidence to date” that it is addressing the legitimate concerns of small farmers in the area. In attempting to establish a history of the insurgency in Chihuahua state predating the attack, the cable’s author admits to a lack of knowledge, most notably due to the Mexican government’s own suppression of information on civil disturbances. The Madera incident sparked years of political unrest in the region, armed insurgency, and brutal State violence. This would prove to be a crucial event in the history of Mexico’s armed insurgency; its date would later become part of the name of one of the country’s most active revolutionary organizations, the September 23rd Communist League. ebb 878 doc 2 Document 2 Security Conditions in Mexico -- and elsewhere in Latin America May 6, 1966 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Office of National Estimates, Secret National Intelligence memorandum Just weeks before being named Director of Central Intelligence, CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms forwards a memorandum to National Security Advisor Walt Rostow that extols the “favorable security conditions” created by the Mexican government in preparation for President Johnson’s visit to Mexico. In it, Sherman Kent of the CIA’s Office of National Estimates observes that the ruling government party exercises a virtual monopoly on political power and is “an outstanding force for stability,” noting that security forces, when ordered, “carry out missions without overmuch regard for legalisms.” To prepare for President Johnson’s visit, Mexico detained around 500 “potential troublemakers” and raided the offices of the local Communist party. The report is careful to note that some of the measures taken by the Mexican government would have been “out of the question in many countries.” ebb 878 doc 3 Document 3 Mexico: The Problems of Progress Oct 20, 1967 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Secret special report This CIA analysis neatly outlines the growing conflict between Mexico’s revolutionary history and recent attempts to modernize the country and encourage integration into the world economy. The report considers that a major obstacle for the government is dealing with rural unrest, which is “bound to grow and become more explosive” as education and communication improvements connect the peasant class with the rest of the country. However, according to the Agency, leftist groups sympathetic with the campesinos remain “divided and weak,” while the Mexican military is a “model institution” and “both brutally effective and politically astute.” The report focuses on the security forces’ ability to contain violence that the CIA considers a political inevitability. ebb 878 doc 4 Document 4 Training for Nuevo León State Security Officials Nov 6, 1967 Source U.S. Consulate Monterrey, Confidential cable A confidential cable from the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey reports on the visit of three top Nuevo León security officials to the AID International Police Academy in the United States at the request of the state’s governor. The consulate describes training, orientation, and visits to the Police Academy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and police facilities in other U.S. cities to help the officials prepare to restructure Nuevo León’s state security organization. The cable stresses the importance of this request for assistance by the Mexican governor and indicates that a request of this nature is an anomaly in the present bilateral security relationship, “given that the degree of confidence…has not always been present on either side.” ebb 878 doc 5 Document 5 Addendum to “Mexican Student Crisis,” 4 October 1968 Oct 5, 1968 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Secret memorandum The CIA analyzes possible Soviet and Cuban influence on the student protests that culminated in the massacre at Tlatelolco in Mexico City. In evaluating whether there was overt Soviet or Cuban participation in encouraging the students, the CIA concludes that both powers are reluctant to jeopardize their relationship with the Mexican government, especially given that the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City provide an invaluable location to mount operations against the U.S. and other adversaries. The Agency determines that the recent student unrest derives primarily from domestic concerns, most notably the Mexican government’s own “rigidity and corruption.” ebb 878 doc 6 Document 6 Mexico: An Emerging Internal Security Problem? Sep 23, 1971 Source State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Secret report The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research evaluates the growing unrest in Mexico following the Corpus Christi massacre, in which student demonstrators were attacked by a group of plain-clothed paramilitaries known as the Halcones during a protest in Mexico City, leaving dozens dead and over a hundred injured. According to the State Department, the Halcones, a “government-organized group of toughs,” formed alongside other clandestine groups, allowing the Mexican regime to confront the growing student unrest while “avoiding the use of uniformed security forces.” The Corpus Christi massacre was a seminal event in Mexico’s dirty war and prompted the United States to assess the stability of the Mexican regime following the public outcry over the government’s complicity in the violence. This secret report from the Bureau of Intelligence and Research reviews three issues facing President Echeverría at the time: the student movement, the increased guerrilla presence in the countryside, and alleged discontent among members of the military. However, the State Department is clear to emphasize the ability of the Mexican security forces in maintaining order, and acknowledges that “the troops have little love for students and would probably be willing to forget their difficulties temporarily if given the chance to crack a few heads.” ebb 878 doc 7 Document 7 Guerrillas Are Nuisance to Mexican Government Sep 10, 1974 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Top Secret National Intelligence Daily article The CIA finds that, despite recent activities by armed guerrilla groups, the insurgency is a “nuisance” and not a substantial threat to the stability of the Mexican regime. The Agency is critical of the government’s counterinsurgency capabilities, however, noting that it required a “massive application of military manpower” to combat revolutionary leader Lucio Cabañas and his “perhaps 50 to 75 hard-core followers.” ebb 878 doc 8 Document 8 Death of Lucio Cabañas Barrientos Dec 4, 1974 Source U.S. Embassy cable The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reports on the death of guerrilla leader Lucio Cabañas, who was killed by the military on December 2. Despite the government’s highly publicized victory, the cable notes that political violence in the cities has always been “cause for greater concern” than Cabañas and the remaining rural guerrilla presence. ebb 878 doc 9 Document 9 Army Operations in Campaign Against Lucio Cabañas Apr 23, 1975 Source Defense Intelligence Agency, Confidential Intelligence Information Report The DIA records a conversation with the commander of the Mexican Army paratroop battalion tasked with searching for Cabañas in Guerrero state. According to the report, Colonel Lázaro de la Vega was trained in the U.S. and Central America. After his battalion killed Cabañas in an ambush, de la Vega was promoted to full colonel. ebb 878 doc 10 Document 10 Human Rights in Mexico Mar 24, 1976 Source U.S. Embassy, Confidential cable An embassy cable outlines the human rights landscape in Mexico in a report on countries receiving security assistance from the U.S. government. The embassy finds that torture and cruel or inhumane treatment frequently occurs during police detention after both criminal and political arrests. However, Mexico’s single-party system allows the executive branch “a certain flexibility” in its adherence to human rights standards, so long as the abuses do not result in “embarrassing public disclosures.” The cable acknowledges patterns in human rights violations committed by the Mexican regime, but “[doubts] that Mexico qualifies as a country where a ‘consistent pattern of gross violations’ occurs.” In other words, the United States can continue to provide security assistance to Mexico despite the Embassy’s own documentation of human rights abuses. ebb 878 doc 11 Document 11 Incident Between Mexican Army and Farmers May 12, 1976 Source Defense Intelligence Agency, Secret intelligence report The DIA reports on a confrontation between local farmers, known as ejidatarios, and the military in Chiapas. While the farmers staged a protest to the local authorities for more communal land, the local army security detachment and two military battalions were dispatched to restore order. In the escalating situation, two civilians were killed and three soldiers wounded. The DIA determines that these types of altercations will continue to intensify ahead of the presidential elections, and that the army’s presence as the sole security force in isolated regions “demonstrates the potential for the army’s being caught in the…crossfire,” which could lead to “national exposure and criticism.” The DIA effectively warns that situations in which the army kills civilians protesting for land redistribution is likely to continue and could create a scandal for the military. ebb 878 doc 12 Document 12 Review of US Policies Toward Mexico Nov 21, 1978 Source National Security Council, Confidential Presidential Review Memorandum [extract] The National Security Council reviews U.S. policies in Mexico at the end of the Carter administration’s second year. Despite their support for international human rights issues, “Mexico’s domestic human rights record leaves room for significant improvement.” The memo highlights contradictions in the Mexican government’s relationship to human rights; the regime offers asylum to political refugees from other countries while criminalizing and persecuting domestic opposition. The NSC determines that state repression is not limited to armed guerrilla groups and acknowledges that “occasional extra legal actions by the security forces have also affected agrarian, labor, and student strike leaders.” ebb 878 doc 13 Document 13 Imminent Appointment of General Francisco Quiroz Hermosillo… Jan 15, 1980 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Secret Intelligence Information cable The CIA reports on the appointment of General Francisco Quirós Hermosillo to his new post as third in command of Mexico’s Defense Ministry. Quirós was previously head of the notorious Brigada Blanca, described here as an “extra legal anti-terrorist organization,” known by Mexicans to be a brutal intelligence and operational unit responsible for forced disappearances, torture, and assassinations of suspected subversives. From his new position inside Sedena, the general will oversee military and civilian counterinsurgency operations nationwide, as well as command the intelligence and logistics sections of the Armed Forces. ebb 878 doc 14 Document 14 Meeting with Human Rights Activist Mar 9, 1989 Source U.S. Embassy, Confidential cable A U.S. Embassy officer meets with activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra to discuss human rights and steps the administration of President Carlos Salinas has taken to address abuses. Ibarra de Piedra is optimistic about some of the government’s recent actions – such as the pardon of hundreds of political prisoners – but describes them as a political strategy to “appear more open and thereby improve the [government’s] image.” In a comment at the end of the cable, the embassy officer observes that, while the Salinas administration is “moving in the right direction,” these measures “will not preempt future abuses motivated by local conditions in other parts of Mexico.” ebb 878 doc 15 Document 15 [Redacted] History of the Mexican Airborne Brigade Aug 26, 1992 Source Defense Intelligence Agency, Confidential Intelligence Information Report The DIA records a history of the Mexican Airborne Brigade from its creation in 1946. According to the report, the first round of officers and soldiers were trained in the United States at Fort Benning. In the course of the brigade’s existence, members have been deployed for diverse activities including “maintaining order” in the midst of student and labor protests in the cities, conducting counterinsurgency missions in Guerrero to “combat bandits” such as the guerrilla leaders Genaro Vázquez and Lucio Cabañas, engaging in counternarcotics operations, and providing humanitarian assistance and relief to civilians. The document is evidence of the level of intelligence gathered by U.S. defense attachés on the Armed Forces in Mexico. Notes [1] Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 1, pp. 12. [2] Commission for Access to Truth, Historical Clarification and the Promotion of Justice for Grave Human Rights Violations committed between 1965 and 1990 (CoVEH), Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH, pp. 9. [3] Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, Recomendación 26/2001, 27 November 2001. [4] CoVEH, Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH, pp. 15-19. [5] CoVEH, Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH, pp. 41. [6] The violence was directed, according to the report, “against peasant, indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities, against those who were active in urban-popular movements, against communities violated by the imposition of development policies, against political-partisan dissidents, against people from the gender-diverse community, against journalists, against refugees on the southern border of Mexico, against residents of areas where the fight against drug trafficking was carried out, against people marginalized and criminalized due to their vulnerable conditions, against people who were part of some religious dissidence, and even serious violations committed against members of the armed forces and police at the hands of their own commanders.” See It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 1, pp. 14. [7] CoVEH, Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH, pp. 12-13. [8] Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 1, pp. 27. [9] Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, Undeniable Truths: For a Mexico Without Impunity, vol. 1, Executive Summary, pp. XXXI. [10] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was one such agency. See, for example, It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 1, pp. 193. [11] Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 4, pp. 415. [12] Editors’ note: the Mexico Project conducted a thorough review of U.S. documents in our collection that have since been further declassified. This document was partially released to us in 2000 through FOIA and has now been declassified in full by the CIA. Key details that were previously redacted were thus able to be turned over to the Mechanism’s investigators.

Argentina-A Small Victory

A Small Victory Argentina Argentina officially emerged from recession in the third quarter of 2024, marking a significant milestone for President Javier Milei and his sweeping economic reforms that have sought to stabilize the country’s crisis-ridden economy, the Financial Times reported this week. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.9 percent between July and September compared with the previous quarter, according to data released Monday by Argentina’s statistics agency. This marks the first expansion of the economy since late 2023, although GDP was still 2.1 percent lower than the same period last year. Growth was driven by agriculture and mining exports, alongside a rebound in consumer spending and capital investment. Still, the manufacturing and construction sectors remain severely depressed. Milei’s austerity measures, termed radical and brutal by many Argentinians and which include deep spending cuts and deregulation, have brought inflation down from a staggering 211 percent in December 2023 while bolstering investor optimism, CNN added. On Monday, Argentina’s Merval stock index rose by seven percent, marking a 174 percent increase this year, while the risk premium on sovereign bonds fell to 677 basis points, a sharp improvement from a figure of more than 2,000 basis points when Milei took office. However, these reforms have come at a social cost, say critics: The poverty rate increased to 53 percent in the first half of this year, while unemployment has also climbed. The International Monetary Fund forecasts a 3.5 percent contraction for 2024 but predicts five percent growth next year. While the rebound signals investor confidence and improved growth prospects, economists warned that Milei’s administration must lift capital and currency controls for Argentina to achieve sustained growth. Others added that the libertarian president must also deliver lasting growth that boosts the living standards for Argentines in order for Milei’s party La Libertad Avanza to gain enough support in the mid-term elections slated for late 2025.

Brasil: Bolsonaro-The Yen ANd THe Yang

The Yin and the Yang Brazil Right-wing Brazilian populist Jair Bolsonaro, who served as president from 2019 to 2023, is technically banned from running for president again until 2030. He also is facing criminal charges for allegedly attempting a coup. Still, he recently told the Wall Street Journal that he plans to file papers for the election in 2026. If he runs, he would repeat the face-off that he lost in 2023 to his ideological rival, left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. A former army officer who tortured civilians under the military junta that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, the Guardian explained, Bolsonaro has denied the allegations that he planned a coup, saying the accusations are politically motivated. But the Economist wrote that his chances of facing jail time are increasing as the case against him becomes clearer, stronger, and the charges broader – they also include theft and corruption. Prosecutors cite undercover agents who helped Bolsonaro hatch a plan to seize power. In one taped conversation among the coup plotters, a colonel tells a top commander in the Brazilian military that they need to act after voters elect Lula to a third, non-consecutive term in the presidency, according to the Associated Press. “It will be either a civil war now or civil war later. We have a justification now for civil war; people are on the streets. We have massive support,” the colonel said. “Let’s do this now. Speak to 01,” 01 being code for the president. Video evidence even showed Bolsonaro staying at the Hungarian Embassy in the capital Brasília, where some wondered if he was seeking diplomatic asylum, the Jerusalem Post reported. Bolsonaro has close ties with the illiberal leader of Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Bolsonaro is also close to President-Elect Donald Trump, Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei, and others who met recently in Buenos Aires to discuss free markets and conservative causes, added Reuters. Those international connections are one reason Bolsonaro still enjoys the support of half of the Brazilian electorate, World Politics Review noted. Corruption remains endemic in the country, too, souring many on Lula and his socialist allies, who have dominated the country’s politics for the past 20 years. Still, Lula’s base of working-class Brazilians who depend on public services is vast and well-organized, as a New York Times story showed. Lula has advocated for protecting the Amazon, recognizing Indigenous rights, and “reconciling economic growth with social inclusion,” as a Brazilian government press release explained. As the Jerusalem Post noted, the problems faced by Bolsonaro show voters there is accountability in Brazil. However, his prosecution also has consequences for Brazil’s political landscape. “These legal challenges mark a steep decline for Bolsonaro, who once positioned himself as a champion of Brazil’s right-wing movement,” it wrote. “(But) his absence from politics could leave a leadership vacuum in Brazil’s conservative ranks, (even as it is) reshaping the country’s political landscape and reinforcing accountability for undermining democracy. Share this story