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- [00:00]
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- [01:31]
Michael Bustamante
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- [02:10]
Don Wildman
Ten years ago, in 2015, during the second Obama administration, it was announced that after 50 years of severed diplomatic relations, the US would be reopening its embassy in Cuba. Seemed quite evident that droves of Americans would soon be dashing south to sun themselves on those fabled shores. So we headed down, too, to produce a TV special on Cuban history. It was a life experience, one that concluded with our last day at the former home of Ernest Hemingway. Think of a GIA, or Lookout Farm was Hemingway's primary residence and workplace for 21 years, starting in 1939. Today it's maintained as a house museum. Paintings on the walls, stuffed animal heads from safaris, books on the shelves, all that Hemingway stuff, all staged as it was when the great author departed Cuba in 1960 with Revolution in the air. The building is open in the tropical climate and visitors pay a small fee to gawk like a peeping Tom in through the windows and doors. But we were American tv. We paid for access. I would be walking and talking with a camera crew inside, right? No way, replied the Cubans in charge. And suddenly we had an awkward standoff right there on Ernest Hemingway's front doorstep in mixed English and Spanish. Our gaffer was the grandson of a Cuban exile. Everyone started shouting at each other. It escalated. It was a Cuban missile crisis of the factual television variety. Eventually things calmed down and it was agreed we could shoot in the living room. One stingy shot. This was my personal glimpse into the tinderbox tensions that can still define Cuban American relations. End of the day, it was just television and we all landed comfortably, Cubans and Americans alike, around a table on the property where a kind fellow mixed up pitchers of the most delicious mojitos ever prepared. And together we toasted our nation's truce. At least temporarily so, because all those droves of American tourists to Cuban beaches, 10 years later, they've still not arrived. Happy day, listeners. I'm Don Wildman and this is American History Hit. Today we discuss Cuba, the eventful history of our relations with this island nation located a mere 100 miles off the Florida Keys. The Spanish American War, Cuban Revolution, Cold War, an economic blockade that ranks as one of the longest grudge matches in modern history. Much to be learned in the company of Michael Bustamante, author of Cuban memory retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile. Professor Bustamante occupies the Bacardi Chair of Cuban Studies at the University of Miami. Greetings, sir. Thank you for talking with me today.
- [05:00]
Michael Bustamante
My pleasure.
- [05:01]
Don Wildman
I predict many listeners will emerge from this episode surprised or astonished even at how much revolution there has been to the Cuban story well before Fidel Castro. Resistance against the Spanish, which we supported and fought for, the long struggle against colonialization is central to Cuban history, isn't it?
- [05:19]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I suppose it's important to think about the varying ways that revolution could be defined. But Fidel Castro, one of the things that explains his rise to power and certainly his early popularity is that he's not just talking about a short term political struggle, about overthrowing guy who was in power before him. He paints what he's doing as the culmination of unfinished revolution since the 19th century, since Cubans began fighting for independence from Spain. I might amend your lead in there a little bit. I think there's some discussion and debate among Cubans as to the extent to which the United States was a friendly partner of that struggle or a spoiler of it. But maybe we'll get into that for.
- [05:55]
Don Wildman
Our purposes today, we'll break this conversation into three parts. Spanish American War to the 1930s, and then as Cuba pushes back against the United States after World War II, then Castro's revolution and the Cold War. And then we'll see how history is going to pan out into the future. First, let's briefly touch on the very beginnings of things. Colonial origins of Cuba. Christopher Columbus, arriving in 1492, he names the island Juana for Prince Don Juan of Spain. European colonization and subjugation of the natives begins then. Many don't account for how harsh this subjugation was. Tragically violent and ruthless, never mind the disease. And Cuba becomes a strategic military outpost for the Spanish, as they did develop it as a hub for tobacco and sugar production. All that relies heavily on enslaved Africans. How did Cuba rate as a revenue producer for the Spanish?
- [06:48]
Michael Bustamante
It kind of depends when you're looking. So early on, the Spanish famously kind of first set up shop in the Americas, not in Cuba, but in the present day island of Hispaniola. Cuba is conquered thereafter, but it's actually from Cuba that the conquest of Mexico begins. And so once the Spanish sort of extend control into places like Mexico, into modern day Peru, the heart of what had been the Aztec or Mexica and the Inca empires, respectively, those are much more sedentary populations, much more sort of sophisticated kind of civilizational structures in a certain way. And importantly, it's there that they find the bulk of metal, of silver and gold. Right. And so early on, Cuba kind of goes into a backwater sort of position, but it then emerges really into a certain kind of prominence because of its strategic location. So Havana emerges as this place where at certain times of the year, the fleet of Spanish ships that would be carrying sort of safety in numbers is the logic. Carrying precious metals mined out of Mexico or Peru gathers in Havana for a little while as sort of a stopping point before making the crossing and doing it in sort of numbers to protect against pirates and things like that. Right. So Havana booms early on as a kind of a transshipment point and a kind of a commercial hub, much more than as a sort of a producer of, of, say, you know, wealth or tobacco or sugar or things that would come later.
- [08:10]
Don Wildman
Amazing harbor, Havana. It's a beautiful place and obviously why they would use that. Over the next 400 years, Spain's power rises and then declines. They lose vast swaths of territory that they controlled in the Americas in the 19th century. Mexico is gone early on in that century. Elsewhere, there's Simon Bolivar and all what's been happening with independence across South America. But somehow Spain manages to keep hold of Cuba. Why? So, I mean, I think of it almost like Vietnam to the French, it was a precious jewel to them. No?
- [08:41]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah. I mean, the Spanish called it the ever faithful isle because it remained loyal supposedly when others did not. But there's some pretty, I think, mundane reasons that explain this, really. It's about economic interests in many ways. I mean, you have to go back a little bit. I mean, there's a really crucial juncture in the mid 18th century, in the 1760s, when, in the midst of what was known globally as the Seven Years War, the British occupy the city of Havana for a little bit under a year. And in that time that the British are running things in Havana, all of that sort of trade and commercial activity that I was referencing gets reoriented in a significant way toward the 13 colonies of what would become the United States. And so that also sets in motion a new kind of boom or the beginnings of a boom in sugar production. Sugar had been part of the economic picture in Cuba since very, very early on. But from the 1760s, there's kind of a degree of increase of investment in sort of sugar cultivation. And then right around 1800, I mean, from 1791 and 1802, 1803, there's this other mammoth event in American that is the hemisphere and global history, which is the Haitian Revolution. And when Haiti, or enslaved people or people and people of color rise up against the French colonial order in what was then known as the colony of Saint Domingue, which was the richest, most brutal, most slavery dependent sugar colony in the world at that time. Suddenly the sugar production there, after Haiti becomes independent, is sort of a ghost of its former self. And there's a market, there's a hole in the market. And so Cuban sugar producers, American investors, dive in. And so the 19th century is this right at the moment when, as you said, all these other nations of Latin America are breaking for independence? This is the moment when Cuba begins to boom, economically, at least for those who are in power. And so for many of those who are benefiting from that new sugar wealth, sort of better the W know than the W dome in independence. And so that that economic interest makes it so that folks are willing to kind of hang on to Spanish colonial rule for much longer than elsewhere in the Americ.
- [10:40]
Don Wildman
So the Spanish American war is a war of opportunity for The United States. Spain is in decline around the world, and America has designs on its own empire. How much was that war triggered by Cuban nationalism against Spain?
- [10:54]
Michael Bustamante
Well, the war begins before it's ever called the Spanish American War. I mean, that's the first thing to note. It's also worth noting that that's not the first time that Cubans try to break for independence. I mean, even at the time when many others in Latin America are breaking for independence, in the 1810s, 1820s, you know, those ideas, the example of the American revol, also Enlightenment ideas, the French Revolution, these things are inspiring some people in Cuba. The Spanish are pretty good at repressing them. So there's some early conspiracies, and then it kind of goes dormant. And there's a logic of sort of sugar and slavery that links Cuba to Spain for many, many years, which is not to say there isn't resistance. I mean, there are enslaved Africans throughout the 1840s, 50s, 60s, who are also fleeing into maroon communities, rising up. There's a whole sort of fascinating story. There's also a fascinating story, too, of many who begin. Many Cuban sugar elites who begin to sort of feel uncomfortable with the Spanish colonial order because of taxation or what have you. And rather than thinking of independence, first they think of, hey, annexation to the United States, right? The United States has been. Many actors in the United States have been eyeing Cuba for a long time. And I can go into that. Then Cubans try to fight for independence starting in 1868. There's a war that lasts for 10 years. It ends in a kind of a stalemate. There's another sort of small effort to get a war going that kind of peters out very quickly. There's a kind of a decade or so sort of lull. And then by 1895, some of the same people that have been fighting for independence since the 1860s are ready to go again. And they have a new sort of young leader in a name of a guy named Jose Marti. And so that's when they launch a new. And what ends up being the final independence war in 1895, it's three years later when the Americans get involved. So I think for the Cuban insurgents, that goal of independence from Spain was first and foremost in their mind. And someone like Marti is also. I mean, he knew the United States intimately. He spent more of his life in exile in the United States than he did in Cuba in New York. He admires much about the United States, but he sees the United States as a rising global power that is also soon going to look beyond sort of its territorial boundaries. Right. And so he is thinking of the United States as both an example in some sense, but also very wary of the United States seeking to cast its mantle over Cuba eventually. And so that the shadow of possible US intervention is there even before it actually happens in 1898.
- [12:57]
Don Wildman
You're making the point that I hope listeners will register that long before Castro, Even before the 20th century, Cuban nationalism and resistance against forces of colonialism was a big deal and a big part of their history. And we sort of step into the mix of that around 1898, which is when the famous event happens. USS Maine, an American ship, is harbored in Havana. Harbor explodes questionably. So the American press blames Spain, fuels public outrage, and demands an American response. It is the birth of yellow journalism. William Randolph Hearst and others flexing this new media influence on American markets. And suddenly we have pressure of, let's do something about this. After all, the Monroe Doctrine is in place here. Let's get these people out of here.
- [13:48]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah, it's all that you said and more. And it's more because it's also building up on this history that I was referencing earlier. Right. US interest in what's happening in Cuba in 1890, in the 1890s, doesn't come out of nowhere. I mean, there had been folks in the 1840s who wanted to annex Cuba as a slave state. Right. To make it the next slave state in the sectional battles of the United States. Then after the US Civil War, there are still efforts to sort of acquire Cuba. The United States had, over the course of the 19th century, made a couple of just outright offers to Spain to buy Cuba. And Spain said, no way. The US over the 19th century, there's a lot of American activity and investment. The reason the USS Maine goes is, is to sort of try to send a signal to all parties in that conflict. Spain and the Cuban insurgents, like, hey, we have cooks in the kitchen here in terms of, so, you know, Spain get things under control, Insurgents don't burn down our sugar plantations. You know, kind of a message. Right. When the Maine explodes, there is this enormous pressure. And, you know, in an odd way, I think it is negative for Cuban nationalism in some ways. But the other thing that happens in Cuba, very different from, say, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, which also become sort of territorial prizes that come out of the Spanish American war for the United States, is that because of that yellow journalism, in part, there's a lot of people who are following the Cuban independence struggle and who do sympathize with it and sort of see from the United States that, hey, these guys are trying to do essentially what we did with the British, however many years ago. And so there's like sort of a condescension, a paternalism, but a begrudging kind of respect to such a point that when the United States actually intervenes in the war, the Congress passes an amendment called the Teller Amendment that basically says the United States forswears any intention of permanent territorial occupation of the island or permanent territorial acquisition. Now you have to sort of read the fine print of what comes later. The United States finds other ways to sort of cast its influence and control, directly or indirectly over Cuban affairs going forward. But that's a much different starting place than say, Puerto Rico had. It's a much different starting place than the Philippines had. So yellow journalism kind of mattered too, because it also drove some support for the Cuban insurgents.
- [15:49]
Don Wildman
Well, it's the Splendid Little War, as it's called. Spain is defeated in short order, cedes control of Cuba along with other island territories in the Caribbean and Pacific. The Philippines. Cuba is nominally independent, but heavily influenced by Americans who occupy the island until 1902. I mean, we're talking about the Marines. This is a full on military occupation, right?
- [16:10]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah. I mean, Cuba's not independent until 1902. I mean, there's a four year military occupation. And the head of that military occupation, at least for a good chunk of it, Leonard Wood, is somebody who, despite that Teller Amendment that I just referenced, is someone who is very open in his doubt about whether Cubans are fit for self government at all. And into that kind of judgment comes all kinds of prejudices, including if you look at, you know, political cartoons in the era. There's certainly a racial element to sort of how American publics are looking at Cuba. The Cubans, along with the Puerto Ricans, the Philippines, are depicted as children, children of color, you savage, like, who sort of need us tutelage, maybe permanently. Right. But the Cubans have gained enough begrudging respect over the course of their cause that the US does eventually allow Cuba to become independent in 1902. They convene a Constitutional convention, but they force that Cuban Constitutional Convention to incorporate into the future Cuban constitution another provision, which is called the Platt Amendment, which was first hatched in the US Congress, which basically says that, okay, we're going to let you be independent, but going forward, the United States is going to have the right to intervene in Cuban affairs. If things kind of go off the rails, you're going to lease to us Certain naval coaling stations, that is. That's why we end up having Guantanamo Bay, right? So there's a kind of an oversight. Cuba can't contract foreign debt, as one example, without sort of US Approval. So it's independence, but in some sense, in name only. It matters enormously to Cubans who say, listen, we didn't want a US Occupation, but let's try to make a good go of this. But that shadow of the United States remains profound, to say nothing of the economic interest that then also pile in to Cuba even more because of the devastation of a war itself. Land is at cheap values Cubans are selling. And so pretty soon, US Interests have controlling stakes in the most important economic sectors in the Cuban economy.
- [18:00]
Don Wildman
I mean, we're talking about six presidential administrations. Between victory in the Scottish American War and FDR coming to power, which includes the time that you're talking about with the Platt Amendment, enormous economic interests have taken hold, I think of a train line you can literally take from outside of Havana, not very far away, but it's called the Hershey Line because it's taking you to the Hershey farm where the coca was being planted and farmed. And, I mean, that's how deeply ingrained we were in that society through those years. It's incredible. When FDR is elected in 1932, the good neighbor policy repeals the Platt Amendment and makes the first step toward a more equal relationship. But was that sincere?
- [18:42]
Michael Bustamante
The record doesn't show the United States sort of repealed the Platt Amendment unilaterally. I mean, the United States was compelled to do it. I mean, what happens is in the 1920s, there's a guy elected into power in Cuba named Gerardo Machado, who, by that point, there's kind of a first political generation that's come of age in Cuba that says, you know what? We're glad we're independent, but this independence is not exactly what we bargained for. And they try to sort of refire the passions of those nationalist ideals from the independence movement and say, we need the United States. It's a logical trading partner, a logical investment partner, but we want real sovereignty. Machado's supposed to be this reformer that embodies all of that. And then he sort of perpetuates himself in power illegally extends into term in office. And by the early 1930s, Time magazine is calling him Cuba's Mussolini. And then there's a revolution that really culminates in 1933 that ends up throwing him out of power. This is another revolution before Castro. Right? And that leads to the establishment of an interim nationalist government that says, we don't care what you think, United States, we are abrogating the Blatt Amendment, right? We don't acknowledge it anymore. And eventually Roosevelt sort of accedes to that. But at the same time, Roosevelt is also working and his State Department is working behind the scenes to sort of push out some of the more radical folks from power. Put into power a certain guy named Fulgencio Batista, who has sort of a comeback story later on, who, despite fashioning himself as a kind of a populist, is certainly more amenable to American interests. And so getting rid of the Platt Amendment was really important. I would say if there's ever a moment where Cuba's sort of democratic experiment flourishes, it's in the 1940s. There's a constitutional convention in 1940 that ends sort of a period of interim governments following the Revolution of 1933, and puts into place a new really revolutionary sort of progressive constitution that both respects democratic norms, but also has robust social guarantees. And at that point, you also see sort of Cuban domestic sort of economic interests begin to kind of claw back a little bit of control of the Cuban economy. But that shadow of the United States is omnipresent. The famous saying was, sina sugar noy pais. With no sugar, there's no country. If the market, the global price of sugar, the price of sugar on the New York markets goes ups or downs, so goes the fate of the Cuban economy. And so that kind of vulnerability and dependence remains very much an Achilles heel for Cuba through the 40s into the 50s.
- [20:59]
Don Wildman
It is in these early decades of the 20th century that we see the point that we're really making here, that this kind of resistance against colonial occupation, really, nevermind influence, is a story that has gone over the centuries in this culture which speaks directly to the strength of Cuban culture, which is its own conversation. But after this break, we'll come back and talk about how this brewing revolutionary movement moves towards Castro.
- [21:27]
Michael Bustamante
I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
- [21:32]
Don Wildman
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- [22:35]
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- [22:50]
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- [23:56]
Don Wildman
Michael let's talk about the Castro and Cuban Revolution 1960. How do we get to this point in the story starts with a dictator named Batista who came to power earlier in 1952. How did they get a dictator ruling this island 95 miles from America?
- [24:12]
Michael Bustamante
Well, as I was referencing before the break, you know Batista was not a new guy on the Cuban political scene. He had been sort of almost handpicked, not entirely, but handpicked to sort of come into recenter power in a more moderate direction, say following the Revolution of 1933. And then he sort of refashions himself as a Democrat. He's elected as the president between 1940 and 44 under that new constitution of 1940. It's this big sort of moment of democratic triumph. He then happily retired to Daytona Beach, Florida. And then he decides in the late 40s that he's not done, and he begins to sort of stage a political comeback. First he's elected senator, and then by the early 50s, there's a presidential election coming up, he is running dead last. And rather than accept that coming outcome, he stages a coup d'. Etat. And, you know, the coup d' etat was not bloodless entirely, but it was fairly simple matter. And that had to do with the fact that those democratically elected governments in the 1940s, under a different political party than Batista's, you know, they were the epitome of the Cuban democratic experiment, but they were also deeply corrupt. They were deeply corrupt. And so Batista is able to sort of capitalize on that and say, I need to stage this coup to kind of clean up this mess, when really it's a, you know, a bid for power against another branch of reformists who are planning to come in. So that's how he comes back to power. And the United States government recognizes this, you know, illegal government fairly quickly, which I think is not a good thing for the United States in the long run. And I think the context here, it makes all the difference. Whereas in the late 30s, early 40s, Batista, it's the time of World War II, it's the time of the Popular Front, when the Soviet Union is our ally. By the early 1950s, we are smack dab into the Cold War. And so it becomes increasingly common. In some ways, Batista is a kind of a prototype for a sort of a US policy in the Cold War that says, well, as long as you're anti Communist, we'll sort of look the other way with your anti democratic credentials. And so that explains Batista's re emergence into power in the 1950s and obviously the beginnings of a movement to overthrow him.
- [26:10]
Don Wildman
Was there strong communist sentiment on Cuba early on, straight out of the Russian Revolution and all that timeframe?
- [26:16]
Michael Bustamante
The Russian Revolution was a global event that had ripple effects pretty much everywhere you look. Certainly in Latin America, in a part of the world where there is this longer question of a kind of a colonial or semi colonial or at the very least dependent relationship with the United States. Certainly that example radiates out, and I think the broader issues of sort of anti imperialism and things like that do have constituencies in Cuban politics, among laborers, among certain intellectual groups, et cetera. The first Cuban Communist Party is founded in the 1920s. But the interesting thing is that that Communist Party, like many Communist parties in the Americas and around the world, could actually prove themselves to be quite pragmatic over time. I mean, they're also reading the environment and they're not sort of gung ho trying to start a revolution at every single juncture. In fact, when Batista first comes to power in the late 30s, communists, despite Batista having repressed some of their labor unions, decide ultimately to have an accommodation with him. And it is sort of a mutually convenient kind of arrangement. Batista, when he's elected president between 40 and 44, he has at least two leaders of the Cuban Communist Party that are sitting in his cabinet right now. It's very different by the time we get to the 1950s, that Batista is a much more sort of cold warrior kind of. Batista outlaws the Communist Party early on, though there's some good academic work that suggests that maybe he treated the Communists with a lighter hand than other forces that would oppose him during the 1950s. So the communist Party had had a presence, it had an important presence in labor, but it was not the leading edge of the movement to oppose and overthrow Fulgento batista in the 1950s. That is key. So one of my pet peeves is when I hear about the communist revolution of 1959, it was not, at least in terms of self definition at the time. And that matters in terms of the constellation of forces. So there's a story to be told of how the revolution that comes to power in 1959, saying it's one thing, then ends up declaring sort of fealty to Marxist Leninism and the Soviet Union after.
- [28:04]
Don Wildman
It's a sidebar curiosity of mine because, I mean, the Russians were very interested in Mexico, very present in Mexico. They must have been there as well in Cuba, not very far away.
- [28:13]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah, I mean, there were sort of agents of influence. There are official diplomatic relations at certain points. In fact, Batista's early governments in the 30s and 40s had official diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Then they're broken later. So there's a kind of an off and on or an up and down of official interactions, but then also sort of unofficial ones. We know much more now about, say, some of the early kind of encounters that people like Fidel and Raul Castro had at certain points in their insurgent 1950s with certain diplomatic or intelligence representatives of the Soviet Union. So they're there. Right. But from there to jump to sort of. This is their plot all along. I think the literature is not there yet. Right. I think historians are still actively arguing about that. I mean, that's the perennial question that Cubans themselves have been fighting about for 60 years. The Castros planning this all along was this decision to sort of identify as socialist or communist, kind of taken in throws of conflict with the United States. I think one objective we can understand in a country with a background of Cubas with respect to the United States, any revolutionary movement, knowing that they're opposing a government that the United States is backing, as in Batista's government, if the Soviets come and say, hey, you might not shut that door, even if you're looking at it just through an instrumental lens, not necessarily, I want to be exactly like you. So it remains a subject of a ton of debate.
- [29:32]
Don Wildman
When you go to Cuba and you're in Havana, you go to these museums, you find out so many other stories. The famous story of these revolutionaries, Castro and a small band coming to the shores of Cuba in a small boat back from Mexico after they've been exiled over there. It's really fascinating and amazing little fables really are told that Americans have no clue of how proud they are of this struggle.
- [29:55]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah, I think Cubans were more proud of that struggle as a generalization, maybe, you know, 40 years ago than they are today. But that's a different conversation. But certainly the Cuban state has done a lot to sort of build up and kind of cultivate an ingrained sense of kind of what the official history of the revolution is and the sort of epic. Right. And there are absolutely kind of epic qualities to it. But I think that in telling that epic story, if you go to the Museum of the Revolution in Havana, there's a lot that's left out about sort of other competing anti Batista groups that were not Castro's. There's a lot left out about what the Cuban Communist Party, the official one in the 50s, had to say when Fidel Castro and his brother first tried to start a revolution by attacking the Moncada Barracks in 1953. That's the failure of that. It was a debacle. I mean, it was an embarrassing debacle in terms of how poorly planned it was. That's what leads to their exile to Mexico. Right. Or first exile in Mexico. But the Cuban Communist Party at that point, they call them in the pages of the New York Daily Worker, which is the US Communist Party's newspaper, because Cuba's Communist Party newspaper was censored at the time. They call Castro and his buddies a bunch of bourgeois putschists. So that story is not in the museum of the revolution. Right. And so one has to look at those kind of official narratives for what they are, which is a reflection of a certain kind of truth, and then also ask sort of what stories here are not being told. You know, how do we kind of round out the picture of this revolution?
- [31:16]
Don Wildman
1959, Fidel Castro is pushing towards Havana. Eventually his forces overthrow those of the Batista regime. We have to mention, of course, Chef Guevara, the legendary Argentinian fighter who's a big part of this struggle. They successfully topple the regime. At that point, we have Americans running from the island. I mean, in the famous movies, in the Godfather and so forth, it's all about the Mafia and so forth. But that's a very dramatic moment as they storm in. What was the American reaction to the revolution immediately?
- [31:48]
Michael Bustamante
Well, it was at the very beginning a belated attempt in the final months of the insurgency to try to distance themselves from the record of having supported Batista until pretty long into the struggle. There was also an attempt, after Batista gets on a plane on New Year's Eve 1958, going into 1959, there's sort of a related attempt with US involvement, to try to plug in another kind of more acceptable leader to an interim role that fails very quickly because of the overwhelming public support for the insurgents at that point, led by Fidel Castro. I think the United States also had, early on, tried to take kind of a wait and see sort of posture. They were certainly concerned, they were certainly nervous. But in the US Government, Fidel Castro also had his supporters. One example, the guy who was the US Consul in Santiago de Cua, the second largest city in Cuba in the east, sort of closest to the mountains where Fidel and his guys were holed up. He had traveled to the Sierra on a number of occasions to negotiate the release of certain hostages and things like that. It developed a kind of a rapport in the same way that the kind of yellow journalism of the 19th century cultivated a certain kind of support also for Cuban insurgents. There are many US journalists, Herbert Matthews being only the most famous from the New York Times, who spend time in the mountains with Fidel and kind of paint this guy as a kind of a Cuban Robin Hood and are embarrassed by the US record of supporting this thug, you know, Fuhensi Batista. And Castro is very savvy about his international projection. He's very savvy and intentional about courting the opinion of foreign journalists, especially so that when he comes to power, the American public generally has a very Kind of positive reaction. He famously goes on a goodwill kind of trip to the United States in April 1959. He's met by throngs of supporters, you know, all over the place, and who see him as a kind of a Robin Hood, who. He's also talking the language of democracy. He has been saying for years that part of what the revolution is about is that, you know, Batista took power by a coup. He tore our constitution to threads. We want to restore democracy. They want to restore democracy and do other stuff. Social reform, a more balanced relationship with the United States, land reform to sort of give more Cubans a stake in their actual economy. That do make U.S. investors nervous from very early on, and certainly Washington is hearing about that, but there's an attempt to kind of wait and see. And the Cuban government, in part under Fidel Castro, is also biding its time in a sense, too. Right. There's this Wonderful clip on YouTube. You can find a clip of Ed Sullivan, who flies to Cuba in the early days of January, before Fidel even gets to Havana. And he travels to the middle of the island as Fidel is sort of making this biblical march to Havana to interview him at like 3 in the morning. And he interviews him and, you know, peppering him with questions about whether he's a communist, whether he's a Communist, because it's the Cold War time. And Cast is frustrated by the question and would always say, this revolution is not red. It is olive green. Right? The color of our uniforms. And so positioning that what we're doing is humanism, not capitalism or socialism. And so you can judge that how you will. Is that him dissimulating as to what his real intentions are? Or is that actually what he felt, that he was trying to thread the needle ideologically between in this very polarized world?
- [34:47]
Don Wildman
And at the same time, I mean, we can't forget the backdrop of this, for Americans anyway, is the most extreme. McCarthy era, 1950s have been gone through. At this point, there's a great sensitivity about communism and what it means. But at heart, we're talking about American businesses which are nationalized or cut out or any number of things. You can only imagine the hotel investments that have been going on, all that sort of thing to this day. That's where the bitterness really comes from, isn't it? I mean, when you come down to brass tacks.
- [35:17]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah, certainly, in part. But all of that, the nationalizations are also the result of this, this very intense tit for tat, particularly over the course of early 1960. And historians and Cubans and others will continue to hash out who fired first, so to speak. So I mean the highlights of that tit for tat. In early 1960, Castro invites Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet Foreign Minister, to Havana to inaugurate a big exposition of sort of Soviet technology. And this was seen in the United States as a kind of a, I'm poking the bear, right, by inviting this guy. But people forget that that exhibition right before going to Cuba it had been in New York. So if the US could have it, Castro says, well, we could have it too. But out of that there's an important trade agreement that's signed and keep in position is, listen, we're trying to take a more and maybe call it non aligned position in the Cold War. We want to have productive relations with different kinds of parties. We're independent, we can do what we want in our foreign policy. And so when the first shipment of Soviet crude oil arrives and arrives to US owned oil refineries that are supposed to refine it, then the State Department or the US Government says to the US Companies, don't refine it. And when they don't refine it, then Castro says, okay, I'll take it over. And then when Castro takes over the oil refineries, the United States says, okay, we'll slap you with the beginnings of an embargo. And then the Cubans say, okay, we'll take over all your businesses. And so things escalate, right? And so absolutely the nationalizations or confiscations, depending on your point of view of those properties remain not just a thorn in the side of US Cuban relations, but a huge impediment to any long term rapprochement between the two countries. There are these property claims that have just not been addressed and it's very difficult to figure out a way to address them because Cuba has its own demands and things like that. And Cuba doesn't have the money to pay what the claims owners want. Right? And the claims owners these days are not even often the original owners or their descendants. The claims themselves have been traded and swapped as if on a market. So it's really messy.
- [37:08]
Don Wildman
Well, In January of 1961, USA breaks off ties. I can't say this glibly. I mean imagine, I mean this is a right at our front doorstep. This is a major neighbor of ours. This has been a, since World War II, certainly a playground for Americans, an assumption that this is a long term relationship forever. You know, they're right there and suddenly we're breaking off Ties. It's weird. And at that point the CIA gets involved and begins planning an invasion to reinstate a friendly regime and we're off and running towards the Bay of Pigs invasion, which is all under the Eisenhower administration before Kennedy. How did anti Castro sentiment start to manifest in America and start to drive foreign policy?
- [37:52]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah, I mean, I think in that tit for tat period of 1960, I think that's when in some sense public opinion in the United States toward the Cuban revolution turns. I mean, there had always been folks in the United States that were more suspicious of Castro than not, but that kind of hero's welcome that he had received in 1970, much less so by 1960. I think the other piece of that is that Cubans who are in disagreement, to put it mildly, with the direction that things are taking internally, begin to leave. And as they show up in the United States and as the United States takes some pretty extraordinary steps to sort of facilitate their arrival, they begin to tell the stories of what they're experiencing. Right. But again, as with everything with Cuba, sort of when the CIA and things like that begin to take an interest or turn against Castro remains a subject of intrigue debate. I mean, what we know is that really as early as late 1959, the Eisenhower administration, and this is before Mikoyan's visit, he's already telling the government to begin a foreign policy of seeking to cultivate opposition groups to Castro, maybe as a hedge, but also maybe as the beginning of what eventually becomes a full on covert action plan that's approved in March of 1960. Right. So well before the rupture of diplomatic relations formally, the US is beginning to put in plan a place that eventually is going to lead to the band Fix invasion. In April of 1961, the Castro government also continued to have its supporters in the United States in the kind of the new Left not represented in Congress per se, but there's an organization called the Fair Play for Cuba Committee that is pretty prominent, involves prominent writers and figures in American public and intellectual life. Carlton Beals, James Baldwin, people like that who don't like the legacy of US intervention in Latin American affairs, much less in Cuban affairs, and are trying to tell United States, listen, let Cuba do what it's going to do and let's not intervene. Let's actually be democratic, small d democratic about this. So there is a push pull in the United States too about the sentiment of the Cuban Revolution, but certainly the Cold War environment I think overshadows all of it.
- [39:50]
Don Wildman
I mean, this was the days of The Dulles and all that. This is real cloak and dagger stuff. And to put it into context, we have Vietnam beginning to get momentum. The domino theory is in play. It's really defining the American view of this in terms of the press and so forth. The Bay of Pigs invasion happens. It straddles the Eisenhower and Kennedy administration. It is really the reason why we have the Cuban Missile Crisis. All of this is part of the same effort. But I want to talk about the Cuban Missile Crisis and how it was read in Cuba, a major event in our history. Viewed so in Cuba as well or not.
- [40:30]
Michael Bustamante
Oh, yeah, I mean, absolutely. But viewed through a slightly different lens. I mean, I think in the United States the story is, you know, we were brought to the brink and Kennedy's sort of savvy and the savvy of his team and the White House team fighting against more draconian options that were being proposed to him by his military planners that bomb the island, that he, you know, diplomacy prevails, right. These secret letters between him and Khrushchev. And again, the context here is also important. Right. Do you get the Cuban missile crisis without the Bay of Pigs invasion before it, this failed attempt to send 1500 exiles in to Taple Castro, which is a debacle. I don't think so. Because at that point Castro was. Now the Americans are going to come back with a second full on invasion. And when Khrushchev says, hey, we'll put in nukes, right, As a kind of a check on US Power, Castro says, yes, right. But in Cuba, that sort of American vision that's in movies, the Cuban government certainly feels cut out of that diplomacy. Castro is livid, to put it mildly, that effectively Khrushchev and Kennedy negotiate a solution to this thing without involving him at all. And he says, I think not illogically, aren't these missiles in my damn country? Right. Like, shouldn't I be at the table as you all are playing on the chessboard? And it's important too, because for all of the ways that the Soviet Union positioned itself as an ally of Cuban anti imperialism vis a vis the United States, Soviet Union was a major superpower too. And I think it raised this question, had Cuba traded a kind of subservience from one power of the United States to another. And it led to some very frosty years, in fact, of Cuban Soviet relations in the 1960s, to the point that Khrushchev has to invite Castro over and take him to his dacha and wine and dine him to sort of mend the fences. But it's a major event in Cuba, but remembered bitterly in that sense as almost a kind of a betrayal in terms of what its outcome was.
- [42:20]
Don Wildman
We did an amazing episode with, I think it's Max Hastings on that subject of incredible history that once you start to pulled apart. I'm just interested, as you mentioned, with the nationalization of where the oil was coming in. There are so many more subtle aspects to things when you're on Cuban shores as to how these events are really defined and how they really took place. It's still cloudy to me what was really happening behind the scenes during the Cuban Missile Crisis on Cuban soil. But we'll move on. Crisis passes. Tensions remain still high as Americans hold out in hope of toppling Castro's regime. There are prolonged U.S. sanctions intended to isolate that are still in place today. Are we basically in the same, economically speaking, as far as Cuba's concerned, the same phase that began after the Cuban Missile Crisis?
- [43:10]
Michael Bustamante
Yes and no. The broad architecture for sanctions that first began to roll out in 1960 and then kind of was formalized, if you will, in what's called to this day the Cuban Asset control regulations of 1963. That remains sort of the body of US federal regulations that governs all things in terms of our exchanges with Cuba. And many of the precedents that were set then are still effectively the case. Most things with Cuba you can't do rather than what you can do. What I would say is that over the years there have been different efforts on the part of different US Administrations, sometimes in concert with the kind of back channel negotiation with Cuba itself, to sort of of think about poking holes in a sanctions regime as a better way to achieve certain foreign policy ends or a way to lead to some kind of broader rapprochement in bilateral relations. So famously, I think the 70s are years in which the United States tries under Republican and Democratic administrations to think about maybe a different approach to Cuba. Its most robust, I would say, under the Carter administration, which leads to not the full normalization of diplomatic relations, but the opening of what are called intra sections in each country's capitals, which are basically like embassies, except in Maine. And then there have been different kind of holes poked in the sanctions regime over time. In the year 2000, there was a law passed that effectively made it law that the United States could not completely forbid the sale of things like food and medicine. There had been an up and down about whether the sale of food and medicine or even the donation of food and medicine were exempt or not from the embargo over the years. So the embargo is like a piece of cheese, which is the kind of bad metaphor I use and sort of of how whether it looks like Swiss cheese or not sort of depends on the persuasions of a given U.S. administration. I mean, right now, if you're asking me where we are, we're at a moment of renewed tightening. We can get into that maybe a little later, the Obama administration makes another big normalization push. There's one big difference that I think is worth noting is that until the 1990s, the US sanctions regime was entirely the prerogative of the executive branch. Right. So with the stroke of a pen, if president wanted to, they could lift the embargo to more tomorrow. That is no longer the case. Since the 1990s, there was laws passed in Congress that effectively codify sanctions until Cuba meets a series of very detailed conditions. And that has really hamstrung the ability of the White House, how far they can go in terms of sanctions relief. They still have some maneuverability, but not complete carte blanche.
- [45:39]
Don Wildman
Part of the story really is how Cuba punches above its weight around the world in all kinds of. Of conflict areas in the world. The Cubans show up, you know, the Angola, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina. There are just so many moments when the Cubans are part of the story of resistance around the world in terms of communism. That seems to be my memory of that time. I also remember them being very good at the Olympics. And so it was always that aspect of the Russians and the. And the Cubans are together. You know, it was that kind of. And it seemed like a threat because they were good at what they did and very certain in their outlook on things. That was part of the story where it's not just a sort of vagueness. It's like, oh, my God, they're right there and they're really dangerous.
- [46:25]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah. I think there's a broader storyline too, about. And it goes back to Fidel's days in the mountains. Right. How savvy they are about kind of the image that they cultivate and project on the global stage. And I think where Cubans who live through the effects of this process internally might have something to say is sort of the global image is one thing and the internal reality is another about whether that's on economics or politics or closed space for civil liberties and the rest of it. But certainly internationally, I mean, Cuba, I think, is very successfully projecting a kind of a broad image. Right. It is to this day by some on the global left, although I would argue in a declining way, seen as a kind of a counterexample to the model of society economics that the United States or the global west represents. The key thing for me, and maybe if I can say this without getting into too much trouble, but the sort of cruel genius in a way of Castro is at the same time that especially by the 70s and 80s, they are as much in the pocket of the Soviet Union and as much reliant on those ties of trade and investment and subsidies as Cuba ever was on the United States still being able to project that they are sort of this beacon of complete sovereignty and independence. I mean, they will argue through the teeth Cuban government officials were that the relationship with the Soviet Union was based on solidarity and quality of treatment and all of that. But you know, I just gave you the example of the Cuban Missile crisis where the Soviets said, yeah, you're not, you're not invited around the table. Let's go to 1968, the Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia. If you believe in anti imperialism, wouldn't that be a red line? I would think so. Castro finds a way to justify it. Cuba though, manages to be a leader of the Non Aligned movement, right? Supposedly this bloc of countries that is saying we're not with the Soviet Union or the United States when Cuba is the only country in the Americas to actually be a sitting member of Comic Con, which is the Soviet Union trade bloc with all the other Eastern European countries. So it's like they figure out a way to have their cake and eat it too and also test the Soviet Union's patience constantly when Che Guevara is running around the world trying to foment revolution in the 1960s with some support from Cuba. The Soviets are not happy about this. They do not think conditions are ripe to do this. Whether in Congo or in Bolivia. He's doing so often in opposition to what the local Communist party wants.
- [48:36]
Don Wildman
Right?
- [48:36]
Michael Bustamante
And yet the Soviet Union, it's like they call the Soviet Union's bluff. Cuba for them is too strategically and symbolically important because it's right next to the United States that they tolerate a lot of what they considered BS from the Cubans over peers, whether it's how they structured their economy or their foreign policy. Angola is another good example. It was fashionable in the US at the time to say Cubans are there as a proxy for Soviet interests. No, the research has proven, declassified documents have proven the Cubans went there at the Angolans invitation. They didn't tell the Soviet Union until they were there and said, now we need you to fund them it. So they called their bluff. And the Soviets at that point, what are they going to look like? They're leaving their allies hanging out to dry. So that's sort of the cruel brilliance in a way of I think Cuban foreign policy.
- [49:17]
Don Wildman
After this next break, Michael and I are going to break down the development of the relationship after the Cold War and what happens beyond.
- [49:29]
Michael Bustamante
I'll be back with more American history after this short break.
- [49:35]
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- [50:15]
Don Wildman
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- [50:18]
Michael Bustamante
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Don Wildman
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Michael Bustamante
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- [50:35]
Don Wildman
Michael, in the 1980s and 90s what did the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the ussr, how.
- [50:41]
Michael Bustamante
Did that leave Cuba hung out to dry? I mean by that point 80 something percent of Cuba's foreign trade was with the Soviet Union and or the Eastern bloc. So when that disappeared essentially overnight, the Cuban economy went into a nosedive. Cuba's GDP between 1991 and 1994 declined by 1 third. That recession doesn't capture it. So we're talking a profound crisis economically first and foremost, but also politically I would argue because the sort of the world view on which the Cuban system was based on that the Soviets are our allies and we are building a future towards socialism with that as some sort of paragon or model that's off the map, Right. So it forces Cuba to think about how they're going to continue to exist in a post Cold War, in a post Soviet world. And it leads to a number of changes economically, especially on the island, that find Cuba trying to accommodate to global capitalism in some ways and in ways that would certainly test anyone's definition of what a pure socialist system should look like. Like with all kinds of distortions that result from that. The other major effect is that if it leaves Cuba hung out to dry, it leaves Castro's opponents eager. Cuba is going to be the next domino to fall. It has to be. I don't know how Many books are published in the early 90s with titles like Fidel's Final Hour. Everyone is predicting that this is going to fall. There's all kinds of talk and planning about what the transition is going to look like. And Cuba once again defies expectations for the pleasure of some and for the deep frustration of others.
- [52:22]
Don Wildman
Fast forwarding here. I mentioned in the opening that we went down and shot a TV show there. That was 2016, I believe, or 18. I mean, this is so silly to say, but I'm just using it as an example. Our bags didn't come and so we were stuck without the stuff. And so it took three days to find a place to buy underwear. I mean, it's really, really tough in Havana just to get by and find normal things. It's a really, really difficult environment. And that is a combination of factors that both the main supporter goes away early 90s, and then this continuing embargo from the big nation next door. And that double whammy is a pincer action, isn't it?
- [53:04]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah, it is. And it's interesting that your anecdote is from 2016, because those were relatively good times in sort of the broad sweep of the post Cold War era that was the height of the Obama administration's efforts to normalize ties with Cuba. To say, listen, we've tried sanctions when they were a Soviet partner for however many years. We tried in the wake of the Soviet collapse to just sanction them with the idea that isolation is going to force pressure to actually come to the table, to change politically. And that didn't work either. Cuba found a way to get out of it. They found new economic partners like Venezuela under Chavez, they built a tourist industry catering to Europeans and Canadians. In 2016, the Obama administration was trying a different approach. And that's a time that I remember in Cuba from my times traveling there over the last 20 years. Years as being the best of times relative to others. Right. In terms of the availability of things, because the amount of people who are coming into the country, Americans and non, and the non coming before the more Americans showed up to ruin it, quote, unquote, ruin this sort of time capsule that they like, despite the fact that real people live there, that was a time of relative material availability. But it's funny you mentioned something like underwear, because a lot of that kind of common stuff. Stuff. Where do Cubans get that? They get that out of suitcases that other Cubans bring to them from Miami. They get that on a black market. It's a supply chain by suitcase. And that Also had to do with the liberalization of US Policy, made it easier for Cubans in the United States and elsewhere to go to the island. And so that fed a kind of a circuit of economic exchange between the island and the diaspora, which is natural in most parts of the world, but because of US sanctions, had been more limited in the Cuban case.
- [54:39]
Don Wildman
2016, Obama visits Cuba, becomes the first president in 88 years to do so. And this detente with Cuba really marked what had happened in this time. I guess the question I have is how much was it just giving in to the fact that Castro just wouldn't go away all those years? Did he win that battle in terms of longitivity?
- [55:00]
Michael Bustamante
In a certain sense, yeah. But remember, you know, Castro had also stepped down by this point. He's not dead yet at that point. He would die several months later in November 2016. But I think the fact that he had stepped down also created some kind of political space for this kind of possible negotiation on both sides, frankly. I mean, it was very interesting to watch as this effort played out, which had to count on a certain Cuban government support for it. Right. Under Fidel Castro's brother, he had been sort of like the more ideologically radical of the two brothers and their origins in the 50s, but over time and fashioned himself as. I even hesitate to use the word, pragmatist, but less sort of orthodox in his thinking on things like economic reform. Raul Castro, since he came into power in 2000, circa 2010, and actually started allowing more space for a kind of a private sector in the Cuban economy than existed before, I think without Fidel Castro, sort of off stage. Do you get that normalization effort under Obama and with Raul Castro? I think not. Or it's less likely. And one of the indications is that Castro was very. He seemed Fidel, that is, seemed pretty unhappy with it. He was retired, but he was still publishing these columns every once in a while in the communist daily newspaper. And, you know, it was a lot of them seemed like potshots at stuff his brother was doing. Doing indirectly. So did Castro win in the long struggle of the United States to overthrow him? Yes. The fact that he died on his own terms, in a certain sense, is an indication of that. But I think at the moment of his death, he had also seen some things that he never thought he might see in his lifetime, and I don't think he was entirely happy with all of them.
- [56:30]
Don Wildman
Well, the Trump administration, of course, reverses this. It goes back to Biden, and now we're back to Trump again. All of this is a continued resistance against whatever you want to call it at this point is Cuba in the post USSR days. It's a very strange situation driven so much by your neighborhood there in southern Florida. How much does that Cuban exile community still drive American policy just by virtue of their power in that part of the world?
- [56:58]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah, I mean, I think there's been some changing viewpoints on this in the following way. I think, think for a long time, people thought that as those Cubans who left the island in the 1960s and 70s kind of came of age and moved on from the hope that it would be next Christmas in Havana anytime soon and began to become citizens and get involved in the US Political process and say we need to not be targets of U.S. policy toward Cuba, but we need to shape it by going to Congress, by getting ourselves elected. They have also punched above their weight, to use that analogy, in terms of their influence over the US Policy process, vis a vision Cuba. But I think the Obama juncture also showed, and also the fact that Florida was a swing state. Right. So you're always fighting for boats. Let's remember the 2000 election, the 2000 election that happens on the heels of the whole Elian Gonzalez thing and how angry Cuban Americans were at the end of that, and that maybe doomed it for Al Gore. All of that has given Cuban American political leadership, I think, a kind of an outsized weight in terms of the shadow. And honestly, let's also remember, if you're in Washington, if you're a senator from, I don't know, Iowa, maybe I was a bad example, because actually there are farmers in Iowa who want to be able to sell their stuff to Cuba. But if you're from somewhere that's not Cuba or not Miami, this is not necessarily top of your priority list. And it is sometimes not worth the trouble of fighting against sort of laying your own political capital on the line for something on an issue that is of secondary importance to you, where it's of primary importance for someone, a congressional leader from Miami. So I think that works in favor of inertia in terms of the US Policy, policy picture. But I think the thing that Obama taught us is that also executive leadership matters. When he campaigned for president in 2000, leading up to 2008, he didn't come to Miami and say, I want to normalize relations with Cuba, but he did say, listen, I'm not going to do what every other politician does, which is tell you, next Christmas in Havana, let's clamp down on sanctions. I mean, he was Pretty honest. And he said, whatever we're doing hasn't worked. I don't know what we wish to do, but we should at least have entertain a conversation about it. I think that changed the tone. And then as he moved forward into his second term and began to take the measures he did, he actually brought a significant portion of Cuban American opinion along with him. In 2016, I have colleagues at Florida International University that poll Cuban American opinion regularly. And that was the only moment in their 30 years of doing the polling at that point that they had seen majority support in the Cuban American community for ending the embargo. If you poll Cuban Americans and ask them if the embargo has worked, vast majority say, no, of course it hasn't. And then you ask, should we keep it for a long time? Everyone said yes. In 2016, we saw a break, and we saw Cubans, particularly more recently arrived Cubans in the community, begin to take, take advantage of the opportunities to go back to even invest under the table in small businesses on the island. Right. All of that. Then I think also the Cubans missed a window. The Cubans missed a window of opportunity to deepen reform, to do more. So that when Trump comes in and begins to unwind this thing and begins to say, we conceded everything and the Cubans didn't give everything in return, he's got a ripe audience for that, and it's led to a kind of a re. Radicalization. So I think it's not just the community. This is my point. It's not just the community driving or conditioning the policy conversation in Washington. It's also the leadership message that's coming from the White House over the last few years. You have to give them credit. The Trump folks have been in Miami constantly hammering home their own message. Democrats have been absent. I think the big question going forward is that now that Florida is not really a swing state anymore, is the Cuba policy issue going to matter here as much? And does that give Republicans or Democrats more flexibility to turn their backs on the community in one way or another? We're seeing some of that play out actually right now in immigration politics, where Cubans themselves, themselves are also at the brunt of some of the Trump administration's immigration measures. And that is, they thought, he's our guy, he's not going to touch us. They've had a rude awakening there.
- [60:39]
Don Wildman
Well, I want to end on a human note. One trip to Cuba, to Havana, will change anyone's mind, regardless of their politics. People are lovely.
- [60:47]
Michael Bustamante
Also very, very bright.
- [60:49]
Don Wildman
Like, I was really struck by whatever had happened in the educational community there that taught people a great deal. But most importantly, it's a very positive experience to be with Cubans in Cuba and to travel the island for an American, for a guy from New Jersey. I walked out with friendships and with a sense of joy and admiration, you know, absent all the geopolitics in my mind, which, of course are important. But you have to understand that this is a very jubilant and vibrant culture that we're talking about here.
- [61:26]
Michael Bustamante
Yeah, I mean, I've had very similar experiences that I think are only maybe intensified a bit by the fact that I'm Cuban American and that my father left the island as a kid in 1962 and no one had been back, not my grandparents, until I went. And, you know, I was going back to a place that I'd never been. You know, that's the sort of emotional baggage of being the son of immigrants and seeing family that no one had seen in however many decades. And so I share all of those experiences. The relationships I have forged in Cuba are some of the most meaningful. I also. Because I think their relationships also forge in a certain amount of. Against the backdrop of this strife and conflict. But I also have to say it's bittersweet. Right? Because I think where we're sitting, at least where I'm sitting right now, is when I think almost 10 years ago to that 2016 moment, it was a moment where certainly not everything was perfect in Cuba. Far from it. Not everything was perfect about the normalization effort with the Obama administration. A lot of things that one could criticize and pick apart. But it was the only time in my time traveling to Cuba where I knew folks who had hope. Now, some might say that hope was misguided or naive. Maybe history has proved them right, I don't know. But it was a time when Cubans I knew were making a conscious choice to stay on the island rather than think about immigrating because they saw that things were moving in some direction, that they thought, well, I don't really know where this is going, but it's going somewhere, and I want to be here for the ride and see if it leads to a better country and try to make my country a better place so that so many people don't have to leave, as my grandparents did. We're in a very different moment now. Cuba, since COVID has entered a crisis that certainly rivals, if not is worse than the special period of the 1990s. It's not being helped, in my view, by US sanctions, but it's also not being helped by Cuban government's own sort of stubbornness on economic reform and liberalization. So I have also watched as some of those good friends I forged, and maybe this is your case too, leave, give up the hope. And that's sort of a cyclical thing. I try to cling on to hope, but I'm not going to lie, it's tough sometimes, particularly at a moment as dire as this. But you're absolutely right, the Cuban people are resilient. They have all kinds of ingenuity. I wish they had more opportunity economically, politically, to show us what they can do and that they were less the casualties in the center of these broader geopolitical forces.
- [63:36]
Don Wildman
Well, I hope they are Margo ends, and I hope it's done because of internal changes, as you suggest. But also I hope that Americans keep the sun shining in their mind on this possibility because they deserve it.
- [63:47]
Michael Bustamante
Agreed.
- [63:48]
Don Wildman
Professor Michael Bustamante is the author of Cuban Memory retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile. He occupies the Bacardi Chair of Cuban Studies at the University of Miami and I am very grateful for your time.
- [64:01]
Michael Bustamante
Thank you, sir. Thank you.
- [64:04]
Don Wildman
Thanks for listening to American History hit. You know, Every week we release new episodes. Two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, please share with a friend. American History Hit with me. Don Wildman.
- [64:34]
Michael Bustamante
So grateful for your support.
- [64:36]
Don Wildman
Thanks so much.
- [64:47]
Michael Bustamante
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- [65:18]
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Michael Bustamante
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