The Third World War: The Untold Story

Soviet strategists believed that both Central America and the Caribbean were now ripe for revolution. They saw that Cuba could be used as the springboard of a powerful politico-strategic movement of support for subversive forces throughout the area. This diversion would tie down US forces and compromise American prestige, allowing the Soviet Union to strike more decisive blows and develop its own initiatives in other areas of the world. It would be difficult for the US to cast the issue of Central American conflict in purely East-West terms and so involve its allies. The Soviets were confident that American public opinion would hysterically oppose a major commitment of troops for a counter-insurgency war in an area to which American TV commentators could commute almost daily. The outlook as seen from the Kremlin was good.

Despite the appalling mess into which his economy had sunk, Fidel Castro started the 1980s in buoyant mood. The emigration of more than 125,00 °Cubans out of his island, after the port of Mariel was opened in the spring of 1980 to all who wanted to leave, had strangely given him a political respite. It had enabled him to get rid of some thousands of hard-core criminals and a good many mental patients. Almost all of the Marielitos had settled in Florida, bumping up the murder rate in Miami and the trade in drugs through the state to become the worst in America. Politically, by exporting at the same time the best of his opposition, Castro was again able to unite around him the different factions of the Cuban political elite: the military, the radical-revolutionaries and the remaining and wetter of the moderates, the latter led by the Minister of Economics Carlos Rafael Rodriguez.

Castro now saw an opportunity to stage a comeback to the Latin American mainland, break away from the regional isolation in which Cuba had found itself for many years, and open an outlet for the energies of the powerful Cuban armed forces after their African adventures. He told his fellow Marxists in Nicaragua that in the United States he would now be mobilizing his racial assets. There were going to be black and Hispanic riots if the new conservative Administration in Washington cut its welfare spending, as it almost certainly would. In Central America the main target was civil war in El Salvador, at least in part as a reaction against the return to power of the Christian Democrats in Venezuela.

Until December of 1979 Venezuela was ruled by the Social Democrats, who were careful to avoid confrontation with Cuba. After the election in that month it was ruled by the Christian Democrats who had campaigned for a policy of open confrontation against Cuba and for closer ties with the US. It appears from information available in Havana, where leaks were as common as in Washington at about the same time, that in 1981 Castro sent a memorandum to Brezhnev in Moscow, of which the gist is as follows: ‘The Government in Venezuela is the key US ally in this region. Without Venezuela the US could be isolated in Central America and we could probably bring forward revolutions in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras-while the radicalization of the Sandinista Government would go much faster. The Venezuelan Government has adopted a very anti-Cuban line. It recognizes the spread of communist influence in Central America and the Caribbean as a serious security risk. It is capable of mobilizing the help of other Latin American countries, notably Brazil, in order to face that threat. Luckily we have two advantages. First, there is strong domestic opposition in Venezuela to this Government’s policies. Secondly, this Government has made a fool of itself by being the decisive influence in bringing a Christian Democrat stooge to the presidency of El Salvador. The Americans think that this man will (a) be an adequate figure in holding his military junta in check (actually he is too weak); (b) look like a charismatic moderate, although in fact he is unconvincing on American television, especially when he tries to speak English; (c) be accepted by Mexico (which he won’t). It is against El Salvador that the revolutionary forces of communism now need to strike.’