Major policy on issues such as Cuban security is made at the highest levels - in the National Security Council and elsewhere - and it is the party in power which must accept full responsibility for this disaster. It is not enough to blame it on unknown State Department personnel. They want to know the truth - and I believe that they are entitled to the truth. The American people want to know how this was permitted to happen - how the Iron Curtain could have advanced almost to our front yard. This is a critical situation - to find so dangerous an enemy on our very doorstep. And - at the same foreign ministers' conferenc - the United States suffered one of its few diplomatic defeats in the history of inter-American relations, when it was forced to withdraw its protest over Communist efforts in this hemisphere. And Radio Mambi - the anchor station of a network which will be beamed at the entire South American continent - broadcasts constant attacks on the United States and the leaders of every Latin American democracy.Įxploiting the twin themes of human misery and Yankee hatred, Castro's campaign has met with success in almost every country - in Brazil, where both Presidential candidates found it politically expedient to appeal to pro-Castro and anti-American elements in the electorate - in Mexico, where anti-American riots followed pressure on a pro-Castro spokesman - in Guatemala, where Castro-equipped revolutionaries are a real menace - in Uruguay, where a general strike was threatened if Castro was not supported at the San Jose Conference. Presna Latina - Latin America's largest news agency, controlled from Havana - carries anti-American and pro-Soviet dispatches throughout the hemisphere. "This army," Castro has boasted, "begins in Cuba and ends in Argentina." His abusive anti-American and pro-Communist messages are carried in books and newspapers shipped to every corner of the hemisphere - often concealed in diplomatic pouches - and handed out together with Soviet propaganda by the Cuban embassies. He has transformed the island into a supply depot for Communist arms and operations throughout South America - recruiting small bands of Communist-directed revolutionaries to serve as the nucleus of future Latin revolutions. With guidance, support, and arms from Moscow and Peiping, he has made anti-Americanism a sign of loyalty and anti-communism a punishable crime - confiscated over a billion dollars' worth of American property - threatened the existence of our naval base at Guantanamo - and rattled red rockets at the United States, which can hardly close its eyes to a potential enemy missile or submarine base only 90 miles from our shores. He has transformed the island of Cuba into a hostile and militant Communist satellite - a base from which to carry Communist infiltration and subversion throughout the Americas. His ambitions extend far beyond his own shores. And all of Cuba is in the iron grip of a Communist-oriented police state.Ĭastro and his gang have betrayed the ideals of the Cuban revolution and the hopes of the Cuban people.īut Castro is not just another Latin American dictator - a petty tyrant bent merely on personal power and gain. All major newspapers and radio stations have been seized. All academic freedom has been eliminated. All political dissenters have been executed, imprisoned, or exiled. All political parties - with the exception of the Communist Party - have been destroyed. There have been no free elections - and there will be none as long as Castro rules. They promised a better life for a people long oppressed by both economic and political tyranny.īut in the 2 years since that revolution swept Fidel Castro into power, those promises have all been broken. They promised an end to harsh police-state tactics. They promised individual liberty and free elections. The slogans, the manifestos, and the broadcasts of this revolution reflected the deepest aspirations of the Cuban people. Two years ago in September of 1958 - bands of bearded rebels descended from Cuba's Sierra Maestra Mountains and began their long march on Havana - a march which ended in the overthrow of the brutal, bloody, and despotic dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. I am talking about the one friendly island that our own shortsighted policies helped make communism's first Caribbean base: the island of Cuba. I want to talk with you tonight about the most glaring failure of American foreign policy today - about a disaster that threatens the security of the whole Western Hemisphere - about a Communist menace that has been permitted to arise under our very noses, only 90 miles from our shores.
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