Report Outline
Fear of Communist Control of Cuba
Soviet Probing in Western Hemisphere
Hemispheric Action Against Subversion
Fear of Communist Control of Cuba
U.S. Support of Common Hemisphere Approach
Signs of strong Communist influence in the Cuban government of Fidel Castro, coupled with a steady stream of anti-United States harangues by Castro, other Cuban officials, and government organs, have seriously perturbed and provoked the Eisenhower administration, members of Congress, and the American public. Demands for retaliation, mainly in the form of reduced sugar purchases and other economic penalties, have been frequently voiced. Through it all, however, the administration has counseled patience and understanding.
Concern over the Communist menace, as well as underlying regard for a close neighbor currently in the throes of revolutionary fervor, has impelled the administration to move cautiously. It recognizes that severe retaliatory action might not only give Castro the scapegoat he seems to be seeking for mounting internal ills, but also risk turning Communist influence in Cuba into Communist domination. The latter eventuality would have such grave implications for U.S. and hemisphere security that it would undoubtedly precipitate preventive or remedial action.
President Eisenhower has emphasized that in any such case the United States would want to act in concert with its sister republics. The President made the administration's position clear in a recent address in Brazil, a country whose Communist party is one of the most powerful on the continent. Summing it up, March 8, in his homecoming radio-television account of the South American good will tour, Eisenhower said:
|
|
