This is the third in a series of CubaBriefs fact checking the claims made by Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel during his appearance on Meet the Press broadcast on April 12, 2026.
Fact Checking Miguel Diaz-Canel’s Meet the Press appearance
“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.” – Jonathan Swift The Art of Political Lying (1710).
Fact-check: Cuba’s dictatorship has taken offensive actions against the United States, and interfered in its internal affairs over more than six decades.
The historical record—drawn from U.S. court records, declassified FBI/DIA documents, State Department reports, and independent scholarship—shows repeated, deliberate Cuban interference: hosting global revolutionary coordination (Tricontinental), direct support for terrorist bombings on U.S. soil (FALN), high-level infiltration of U.S. intelligence (Montes and others), and torturing American prisoners of war in Vietnam. These actions were offensive in nature and explicitly aimed at undermining U.S. security and interests. The claim does not hold up under scrutiny.
Let us examine his claim below at 7:04:
Let us now test Diaz-Canel’s claims, with some facts. This is not an exhaustive accounting.
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962): Cuba actively hosted and supported the secret deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles targeting the U.S. mainland—the closest the Cold War came to nuclear war.
- The Black Friday Plot (1962). In November 1962, weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cuban DGI/State Security agents at the Cuba Mission to the United Nations in New York City orchestrated the “Black Friday Plot,” intending to detonate approximately 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of TNT plus a dozen incendiary devices, hand grenades, and detonators in crowded Manhattan locations on the busiest shopping day of the year (November 23). Primary targets were Macy’s, Gimbel’s, and Bloomingdale’s department stores, along with Grand Central Terminal. Individuals involved were diplomats Elsa Montero Maldonado and her husband José Gómez Abad; they supplied the explosives from the mission under diplomatic cover; attaché Roberto Santiesteban Casanova, who coordinated logistics; José García Orellana, a Cuban immigrant whose West 27th Street costume-jewelry shop served as the storage and assembly site; and his part-time assistant Antonio Sueiro. The FBI broke up the plot through counterintelligence surveillance of the Cuban mission and pro-Castro operatives; on November 17, agents approached Orellana, who cooperated by leading them to the cache at his shop, where the entire stockpile was seized in raids. The three non-diplomatic operatives were arrested on federal sabotage-conspiracy charges, while the diplomats were expelled under immunity; all charges were later dropped in a 1963 prisoner exchange with Cuba.
- Tricontinental Conference (Havana, January 1966) Cuba hosted the First Solidarity Conference of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Tricontinental), attended by over 80 delegations from revolutionary and anti-colonial movements. The explicit purpose was to coordinate global support for armed struggles against “imperialism,” with a heavy focus on U.S. actions in Vietnam and Latin America. Fidel Castro’s closing speech promised “maximum support” from Cuba to any revolutionary movement on any continent. Cuba was chosen as the permanent headquarters for the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (OSPAAAL), which became a hub for propaganda, training coordination, and material aid to insurgencies. This was not passive diplomacy—it was active promotion and logistical organization of movements explicitly targeting U.S. interests and allies.
- Support for the FALN (and related Puerto Rican terrorist groups) Following the failure of the 1962 Black Friday Plot and the exposure of Cuban diplomats providing explosives, Havana shifted to using proxies. One of them was a Puerto Rican terrorist group. The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN) conducted more than 130 bombings and attacks on U.S. soil between 1974 and 1983, killing at least six people and injuring dozens. Key examples include the January 24, 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing in New York City (4 dead, 63 injured) and a 1977 New York bombing spree that killed one and injured six while forcing the evacuation of 100,000 office workers. U.S. court documents, FBI investigations, and congressional testimony establish that Cuban intelligence (DGI) provided training in explosives, guerrilla tactics, and sabotage in Cuba; logistical support; and safe haven for leaders. Filiberto Ojeda Ríos (FALN co-founder) received advanced training in Cuba; Guillermo Morales (convicted FALN bomb-maker) fled to Cuba after escaping U.S. prison and remains there. Cuba also harbored other Puerto Rican militants wanted for attacks on U.S. targets. This was direct material support for terrorism on U.S. territory that killed innocent American civilians.
- Broader state sponsorship of terrorism: Cuba was designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. in 1982 (and again in 2021) precisely for arming and training groups like the FALN, ELN (Colombia), and others engaged in violence against U.S. interests or allies. Havana also harbors dozens of U.S. fugitives wanted for terrorism and violence into the present day.
- Infiltrating the U.S. government and passing intelligence to enemies Cuba’s Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI) ran multiple long-term espionage operations inside U.S government agencies. The most damaging documented case is Ana Belén Montes (“Queen of Cuba”), a senior Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst on Cuban and Latin American affairs. Recruited in 1984–1985, she spied for 17 years (until her arrest in September 2001), passing classified information on U.S. military plans, identifying at least four undercover U.S. intelligence officers working in Cuba, and influencing U.S. assessments of Cuba. She used encrypted communications and memorized documents to avoid detection. Other cases include Walter Kendall Myers and his wife (State Department analysts who spied for decades after recruitment in 1978) and the “Wasp Network” in Florida (1990s Cuban spy ring targeting exile groups and U.S. facilities). During the Cold War, much of this intelligence was shared with the Soviet Union (and later sold to other adversaries).
- Tortured U.S. prisoners of war in Vietnam From July 1967 to August 1968, a team of Cuban intelligence officers led by an interrogator nicknamed “Fidel” (later identified by some as Fernando Vecino Alegret) conducted the “Cuban Program” at the North Vietnamese prison camp known as “The Zoo.” This group, which also included officers nicknamed “Chico” and “Pancho,” subjected approximately 20 American airmen to brutal interrogation and torture using rubber hoses and fan belts. These actions resulted in the death of Major Earl G. Cobeil, who died from his injuries in 1970, while survivors like Colonel Jack Bomar and Captain Raymond Vohden later provided detailed testimonies of the abuse.
- Brothers to the Rescue shoot down (1996) Cuban spies from the DGI’s Wasp Network (La Red Avispa), including the Cuban Five—Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González—working in coordination with Cuban military officials under the orders of Fidel Castro and Raúl Castro, infiltrated Cuban-American exile groups like Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR) and Movimiento Democracia as part of Operation Scorpion to gather flight schedules, pilot details, and operational plans that enabled the premeditated shootdown of two unarmed BTTR civilian Cessna 337 Skymaster aircraft on February 24, 1996, in international airspace over the Florida Straits (6–16 nautical miles outside Cuba’s 12-mile territorial waters), by Cuban MiG-29UB and MiG-23 fighters under Raúl Castro’s command as Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, killing four U.S. citizens—Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales—who were on a search-and-rescue mission for Cuban rafters; The Wasp Network also gathered private personal information on U.S. military personnel, including names, home addresses, and even medical files at U.S. Southern Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa as well as officers stationed at Naval Air Station Key West (Boca Chica), as part of their infiltration of these U.S. military facilities and broader Operation Scorpion directives from Havana. Antonio Guerrero obtained employment as a civilian maintenance worker at Boca Chica and reported detailed information on combat readiness, daily activities, building layouts (including security areas), and other operational data.
- Cuba maintains diplomatic, ideological, and historical operational ties to Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran ( as their primary backer). Havana’s support for Middle Eastern terrorists dates back to the 1960s. This includes documented Cold War-era training of Palestinian militants. Currently engages in intelligence sharing allegations, high-level meetings, and public support for Hamas post-October 7, 2023. This includes regional operational bases via Latin American networks).
- Ongoing espionage and subversion: Post-Cold War operations continue, including economic espionage and intelligence-sharing that benefited U.S. adversaries.
Díaz-Canel’s claim is the standard Cuban dictatorship talking point that portrays the regime as purely defensive and non-aggressive. The claim frames Cuba as a passive victim of U.S. aggression with no history of offensive actions or interference, but the historical record says otherwise. The above ten examples are not an exhaustive list.
U.S. State Department, January 24, 2025
Remembering the Fraunces Tavern Bombing and the Cuban Regime’s Continued Support of Terrorists
Today, we solemnly commemorate the 50th anniversary of the tragic bombing at Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan. On January 24, 1975, the Puerto Rican terrorist group Armed Forces for National Liberation (FALN) carried out a terrorist bombing attack that claimed the lives of four innocent individuals and injured more than fifty others.
As we reflect on this somber day, we honor the memory of those who perished in the explosion: Alejandro Berger, Frank Connor, James Gezork, and Harold Sherburne. Their untimely deaths remind us of the devastating impact of terrorism and the enduring pain it inflicts on families and communities.
The Fraunces Tavern bombing was a stark reminder of the threats posed by terrorist ideologies and the lengths to which some will go to advance their causes. In the aftermath of the bombing, our nation came together to support the victims and their families, demonstrating the resilience and unity that define the American spirit. The FBI and other agencies worked tirelessly to capture William Morales, one of the key figures in the FALN, in an attempt to bring him to justice.
Morales escaped from prison in the United States, fleeing to Mexico, eventually making his way to Cuba, where Dictator Fidel Castro granted him safe haven. To this day, Cuba continues harboring him and other wanted U.S. fugitives and terrorists. Today, we commemorate the lives lost on that tragic day. We must also recommit ourselves to demanding that wanted U.S. fugitives under the Cuban regime’s protection be brought to justice. We owe the victims and the American people our unwavering commitment to holding the Cuban regime accountable.
Miami Herald, May 13, 2024
History of Cuban spying and the harm done to the U.S.
Victor Manuel Rocha is the latest Cuban spy sentenced for his crimes, but he’s far from the first captured in the U.S. Since the early 1960s, the Cuban government has recruited dozens of agents or double agents. In all cases, the damage done to the U.S. and its security has been hard to gauge.
In Rocha’s case, he spent over 40 years spying for communist Cuba at the U.S. State Department, holding important postings in Latin America and in the National Security Council.
Later, he worked as a private consultant for the U.S. Southern Command in Doral, which oversees Cuba. The Associated Press reports that “Federal authorities have been conducting a confidential damage assessment that could take years to complete,” when discovered, much of it will remain classified.
Rocha was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in April and fined $500,000.
Other spies have stolen U.S. intelligence that may have gotten Americans killed and engaged in influence operations to downplay Havana’s threat to the U.S.
Spying for Havana were Ana Belen Montes, who spent 17 years at the Pentagon in the Defense Intelligence Agency; Walter Kendall Myers, a high ranking analyst at the State Department who spent 30 years spying with his wife Gwendolyn; and Marta Rita Velazquez, a legal officer at the Agency for International Development, who recruited Montes.
Carlos Alvarez, a psychology professor at Florida International University, spent nearly 30 years with his wife, Elsa, spying on their community, and organizing trips for students to Cuba. Philip Agee, who worked at the Central Intelligence Agency, defected to Cuba in 1973 and outed 250 CIA officers and agents.
In addition, Castro’s spies, who pass themselves off as diplomats, operate in Havana’s embassy in Washington and at Cuba’s United Nations Mission in New York City. The Cuban dictatorship also sends illegal agents to spy and conduct active measures in America.
Havana’s WASP spy network infiltrated the United States to gather information on military installations and personnel, sow division among Cuban exiles, locate places to store weapons and explosives and terrorize then assassinate a CIA agent living in Florida with a mail bomb. They helped kill four in the Feb. 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, and the network’s head Gerardo Hernandez was convicted of murder conspiracy.
These practices began in 1959. In 1961, the Soviet Defense Council gave Czechoslovakia orders to use Cuban intelligence to infiltrate existing drug operations in the U.S. and Latin America and to lay the groundwork for “recruiting” these independent activities. The former high-ranking Czech official Jan Sejna gave a detailed account of his meetings with Raul Castro, which he had on average four times a year between 1961 and 1968, the same year Sejna defected to the U.S..
After the State Department determined in January 1982 that Havana had armed the M-19 terrorist group in exchange for drugs smuggling to the U.S., Cuba was added to the state terror sponsors list on March 1, 1982
Four high-ranking Cuban officials were indicted by a U.S. grand jury for narcotics smuggling on November 5, 1982.
- Rene Rodriguez-Cruz, Cuban Communist Party Central Committee member and president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship With The Peoples.
- Aldo Santamaria-Cuadrado, a vice admiral in the Cuban navy and Cuban Communist Party Central Committee member.
- Fernando Ravelo-Renedo, Cuban ambassador to Colombia..
- Gonzalo Bassols-Suarez, former minister-counsel of the Cuban embassy in Bogota and Cuban Communist Party member.
Montes was recruited by Cuban intelligence agents in New York City in December 1984, and on Sept. 30, 1985 she reported to work at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in the Pentagon.
Former Army counterintelligence special agent Reg Brown also came to the DIA in 1985. Chris Simmons, a career Counterintelligence Officer, in his 2023 book, Castro’s Nemesis describes how Brown conducted an assessment that revealed the “Castro regime still trafficked drugs” and that this involved the “organized and sustained involvement by many of Fidel’s highest ranking officials.”
A Cuban spy in the DIA warned Havana that their role in flooding the U.S. with cocaine would be discovered.
This was not the end of the Havana Cartel. With the rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1999, Havana played a major role in the formation of the Soles Cartel, and the dramatic increase in cocaine entering the U.S. over the next 25 years.
There is no doubt. Rocha and other Cuban spies like him harm the U.S. government and tens of thousands of innocents.
John Suarez is Executive Director for Center for a Free Cuba.
Cuban Studies Institute, August 29, 2019
A publication of the Cuban Studies Institute
Cuba’s Continuous Support for Terrorism
Staff Report*
Although Cuba was removed in 2015 from the U.S. State Department list of countries supporting terrorism, General Raul Castro’s regime continues to collaborate with terrorist groups and countries, and harbors U.S., Spanish, and Colombian terrorists in the island.
Iran, Cuba and Venezuela have developed a close and cooperative relationship against the U.S. and in support of terrorist groups and states. The three regimes increasingly coordinate their policies and resources in a three-way partnership aimed at counteracting and circumventing U.S. policies in the Middle East and Latin America. Within this relationship, Cuba plays a strategic role in terms of geography (proximity to the U.S.), intelligence gathering (both electronic eavesdropping and human espionage) logistics, and training.
In addition to its proven technical prowess to interfere and intercept U.S. telecommunications, Cuba has deployed around the world a highly effective human intelligence network. The type of espionage carried out by Ana Belén Montes, the senior U.S. defense intelligence analyst who spied for Cuba during some 16 years until her arrest in 2001, has enabled the Castro regime to amass a wealth of intelligence on U.S. vulnerabilities as well as a keen understanding of the inner-workings of the U.S. security system.
Such information and analysis are being provided to strategic allies like Iran. While one may argue that factors such as Iran’s limited military capabilities and sheer distance diminish any conventional concerns, one should expect that Tehran, in case of a U.S.-Iran conflict, would launch an asymmetrical offensive against the U.S. and its European allies through surrogate terrorist states and paramilitary organizations. In such a scenario, Cuban intelligence would be invaluable to Iran and its proxies, and Cuban territory could be used by terrorist groups to launch operations against the U.S.
Following is recent evidence of Cuba’s involvement with terrorism:
- Cuba directly and through Venezuela continues to provide intelligence to Hamas and Hezbollah.
- Hezbollah, on orders from Hasan Nasrallah, set up an operational base in Cuba.
- Working in coordination with the Cuban government, Venezuela is promoting Hezbollah and Iranian targets in South America and against the U.S. They fundraise for Hezbollah, facilitate travel for Hezbollah activists to Venezuela, and through Venezuela to other countries. This is all part of the strategic alliance between Venezuela, Cuba and Iran.
- Cuban military officers are acting as liaison between Venezuelan military and the narco-guerrillas of the Colombian FARC. Cuban General Leonardo Ramon Andollo, Chief of Operations of the Cuban MINFAR (Ministry of the Armed Forces), has visited Venezuela several times and acted as a go between the Cuban and Venezuelan military involved in drug trafficking.
- On May 19, 2019, the Panamanian Naval Services (SENAM Panama) announced that they confiscated thousands of packages of cocaine hidden in carbon bags that originated in Cuba and were destined for Turkey.
- The FBI estimates that Cuba has provided safe harbor to dozens of fugitives from U.S. justice who live on the island under the protection of the Castro regime. Some of these fugitives are charged with or have been convicted of murder, kidnapping, and hijacking, and they include notorious killers of police officers in New Jersey and New Mexico, most prominent among them Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur), placed by the FBI in 2013 on the “Most Wanted Terrorist List.” The FBI is offering two million dollars for information leading to her apprehension.
- Other terrorists fugitives of the U.S. living in Cuba include Ishmael LaBeet, one of the five men convicted of the infamous Fountain Valley Massacre, a racially tinged 1972-armed robbery in the Virgin Islands that turned into mass murder, with eight dead. Guillermo Morales, the master bomb-maker of the Puerto Rican separatist group FALN, which set off 140 or so blasts around the United States during the 1970s and 1980s, killing at least six people. Victor Gerena, an armed robber working for another Puerto Rican separatist group, who is believed to have taken the proceeds of a $7 million heist to Cuba with him. Charles Hill who in 1971 hijacked a civilian plane carrying 49 passengers and fled to Cuba. Hill is also wanted for the 1971 murder of New Mexico State Police officer Robert Rosenbloom. Frank Terpil, a former CIA officer and convicted arms trafficker who is wanted for providing more than 20 tons of plastic explosives to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Others include William Lee Brent, William Potts and Ronald Labeet, all wanted in the U.S.
- Current and former Spanish members of Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA), a Basque terrorist organization continue to reside in Cuba. While some of these terrorists are on the island as part of an accord between the Cuban and Spanish governments, others are hiding in Cuba, fugitives of Spanish justice. ETA terrorist, Jose Angel Urtiaga Martinez, has lived in Cuba since the 1980s and is wanted by Spanish Justice. In addition, there are about a dozen other ETA members living in Cuba.
- In mid-2013, the Castro regime was caught smuggling weapons (aircraft, missiles, etc.) out of Cuba on a North Korean vessel in violation of UN sanctions. Cuba lied to the international community about the content of the vessel. The official UN Report on “Cuba-North Korea Illegal Weapons Trafficking,” published in March 2014, revealed “a comprehensive, planned strategy to conceal the existence and nature of the cargo.” The Report concluded, contrary to Cuba’s allegations, that “some, if not all, of the consignment was not expected to be returned to Cuba.”
- Former Cuban intelligence official, Uberto Mario, has described how the Castro regime is training Venezuelan “Tupamaros,” pro-Maduro groups who violently attack Venezuelan students.
- “Hezbollah in Cuba,” the Hamas-funded Turkish “charity” known as IHH continues to operate in Havana. IHH is a member of the “Union of Good,” an umbrella organization that financially supports Hamas.
- Managed by Cubans and Venezuelans sympathetic to Cuba, Venezuela’s immigration system, “Misión Identidad,” facilitates the entry of Cuban agents into Venezuela. Cubans also control SIME (Servicio de Identificacion, Migracion y Extranjeria, Caracas) which facilitates the travel of drug organizations, Colombian guerrillas, and Islamist terrorists. Cuba also has on the island duplicate Venezuelan forms and stamps to issue passports and identifications to these groups.
- Warranting special mention are the outstanding U.S. indictments against Cuban Air Force pilots Lorenzo Alberto Pérez-Pérez, Francisco Perez Perez and General Rubén Martínez Puente, the head of the Cuban Air Force, who in 1996 shot down two unarmed civilian American aircraft over international waters in the Florida Straits. That act of terrorism, ordered by Fidel and Raul Castro, killed four men, three of them American citizens. The Castro brothers personally accepted responsibility for the shot-down.
- In 2013 “Prensa Islamica” published an article on Cuba-Iran growing relationship. The article explains that Cuba has shared with Iran its “vast knowledge on intelligence” and has discussed cooperation “on electromagnetic weapons capable of sabotaging enemy communications.”
- In January 2019, Colombia’s President asked Cuba to extradite several leaders of Colombian terrorist group Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN). Yet Cuba refuses. Living in the island are Israel Ramírez Pineda aka Pablo Beltrán; Victor Orlando Cubides, aka Aureliano Carbonell; Manuel Gustavo Martínez; Consuelo Tapias; Tomás García; Isabel Torres; Juan de Dios Lizarazo Astroza, aka Alirio Sepúlveda; Luz Amanda Pallares, aka Silvana Guerrero; Vivian Henao; Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista, aka Gabino; and Oscar Serrano.
- Other leaders of the Colombian terrorist group, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC live in Cuba or use the island as safe heaven. They include Ivan Marquez, Jesús Santrich and Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, aka Timochenko.
- The electro-magnetic cyber-attacks against U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Havana that harmed a number of them, is still an unresolved issue.
In an attempt to obtain unilateral concession from the U.S., Gen. Raul Castro’s regime has toned down some of the violent anti-U.S. propaganda of older brother Fidel. Yet his commitments to and interrelationships with anti-American terrorist groups have not disappeared. They have taken a more sophisticated approach; many times, using proxies such as Venezuelan supporters.
* Cuban Studies Institute Staff Report. Foreign intelligence services provided information for this report.
https://cubanstudiesinstitute.us/politics/cubas-continuous-support-for-terrorism/
Associated Press, February 27, 1996
U.S. Says Transcripts Show That Cubans Knew Planes Were Unarmed
UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ The United States released a transcript of Cuban communications today that U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said showed the Cubans joyfully fired at the small planes.
“The target is in sight, the target is in sight,″ the transcript shows one of the MiG pilots radioing back to his headquarters. “It’s a small aircraft.″
“Copied. A small plane in sight,″ the ground controller responded.
A few moments later, the MiG pilot identified his target as a Cessna 337. The controller then said the pilot was “authorized to destroy.″ After firing, the pilot shouted “we took out his balls.″
“I was struck by the joy of these pilots in committing coldblooded murder,″ Albright said as she released the transcripts. “Frankly, this is not `cojones’ (testicles in Spanish). This is cowardice.″
Albright released the transcript shortly before the expected arrival of Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina, who has come to present his country’s case to the United Nations.
The Cubans claim the planes violated their airspace and were part of a series of provocations by Cuban exiles in league with the U.S. government.
Before dawn today, the Security Council adopted a statement saying it “strongly deplores″ the attack Saturday, in which Cuban MiGs shot down the planes belonging to Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based group of Cuban exiles. The four Cuban-Americans aboard are presumed dead.
The United States originally asked the 15-member council to say it “condemns″ the attack as an unlawful use of force and a threat to international order. None of that wording made the final statement.
Cuba’s acting ambassador, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, defended the attack before the council on Monday.
“International peace and security is not what is threatened today,″ Rodriguez said.
“It is the peace, sovereignty and security of Cuba which have been endangered for more than 35 years because of … those in a position of strength who promote action against my country,″ he said.
Cuba claims the planes were shot down over its territorial waters, which the United States denies. In the past, the exile group has rescued Cuban refugees from the waters off Cuba and has dropped leaflets over Cuba criticizing Fidel Castro’s communist government.
A Cuban Foreign Ministry spokesman called the resolution “a total miscarriage of justice″ that lacked “any clear condemnation of the United States as the clear originator of this sequence of events.″
U.S. officials allowed the planes to take off from Florida despite knowing they would violate Cuban airspace, the spokesman, Miguel Alfonso Martinez, said in Geneva.
The Security Council presidential statement was accepted unanimously, although without a formal vote. It carries less weight than a formal council resolution, which would have required a vote.
It cites international covenants banning the use of weapons against civilian aircraft and asks the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal to conduct an immediate investigation.
Through that request, U.S. officials hope to lay a legal foundation for any future sanctions that might be imposed against Cuba.
But council diplomats said that apart from the Americans, there was little or no support for punitive actions against Cuba.
The United States had pressed the council to act on the statement without delay.
“It is important to the United States to get action on this heinous crime, and to have the international community make clear this is a major breach of international law,″ Albright said. “It is a criminal act.″
As current holder of the rotating council presidency, Albright at one point threatened to keep the council in session until dawn, if necessary, diplomats said.
Council members beat that deadline by just three hours _ adjourning about 3:45 a.m. today.
The New York Times, October 23, 1992
Castro Wanted a Nuclear Strike
Oct. 23, 1992
For me, the culmination of the Cuban missile crisis was not Oct. 27, 1962, when John F. Kennedy awaited a reply to his ultimatum to pull the missiles off the island, but the telegram Fidel Castro sent to Nikita Khrushchev earlier: “I propose the immediate launching of a nuclear strike on the United States. The Cuban people are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the destruction of imperialism and the victory of world revolution.”
Two large question marks and exclamation points stood out in the margin of the telegram. They were written by Leonid Brezhnev’s successor, Yuri Andropov, who was then in charge of an international division of the party’s Central Committee. I found him pacing in his office, repeating over and over: “Adventurists. Such adventurists.” I asked, “Do you just mean the Cubans or someone in this building as well?” He looked at me sharply but said nothing. Later, as if returning to my question, Mr. Andropov told me what Khrushchev had told his advisers about the telegram: “You see how far things can go. We’ve got to get those missiles out of there before a real fire starts.”
This was a switch in positions. Khrushchev had initiated the scheme, and Mr. Castro had serious doubts about it. After the crisis was resolved, Khrushchev asked me to edit his personal message to Mr. Castro in which he tried to explain to his greatly angered partner how and why the idea of creating a missile base on Cuba had been born.
“[Defense Minister Rodion] Malinovsky and I happened to be walking along the Black Sea one day. Malinovsky said, pointing toward the sea: ‘Over on the other shore, in Turkey, there is an American nuclear missile base. In a few minutes, rockets launched from that base can destroy Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov and could even reach Moscow.’ So I said to Malinovsky: ‘Why is it that the Americans are allowed to have a base right under our noses? What if we set up a base on Cuba, right in America’s back pocket. Let them see how they like it. What do you think? Will Fidel agree to it?’ “
Then Anastas Mikoyan and a team of experts went to Cuba to convince Mr. Castro. After that, a plan for the secret deployment of the missiles and nuclear warheads was worked out. Although Mr. Castro more than once raised the issue of an open treaty in order to please Khrushchev, our experts maintained that there was a chance to do it secretly and then spring it on the Americans, after which we could enter into negotiations from a position of strength.
This was the scheme’s stupidest part — the hope that U.S. intelligence wouldn’t notice the movement of a hundred ships, and 42 bomber spy planes, nor the installation of 42 ICBM’s and 144 anti-aircraft weapons, nor even the deployment of 40,000 Soviet soldiers. But such is the logic of an authoritarian regime.
A security crisis could again occur, this time involving Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, where nuclear missiles are based. The U.S. should offer these states its services as a mediator and guarantor of a nuclear weapons agreement among them. If Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed to nuclear disarmament, the U.S. should protect them from pressure from Russia.
A package of new documents, drafted with U.S. participation, could incorporate existing obligations between the former Soviet Union and the U.S. and add guarantees on nonproliferation, non-use and reduction of nuclear weapons.
But the most immediate problem is controlling missiles. It cannot be ruled out that separatists and extremists might seize them for blackmail. Observation points manned by American officers in the four nuclear states, with the approval of those states, could provide a barrier against such adventurism and a future missile crisis.
A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 23, 1992, Section A, Page 33 of the National edition with the headline: Castro Wanted a Nuclear Strike.
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/23/opinion/castro-wanted-a-nuclear-strike.html