CANTILLO’S
LIST
Around one
o'clock on January the first, 1959, the engines of several DC-3, DC-4, and C-46
aircrafts thundered at the civilian sector of the Columbia military airport,
West of Havana, where 'Q’ Airways were.
The
scheduled flights from this airline linking Havana with the Isle of Pines,
Veracruz, and various points in Florida. 1
However, on
that first morning of 1959, the planes that warmed their engines at the
airstrip broke the routine. Some would head for Jacksonville, Florida, and the
rest would be diverted towards Dominican Republic.2
According to
the memoirs of General Fulgencio Batista, the reason for those irregular
flights was his hasty departure from Cuba with his family and his closest aides
given the seriousness of the political and military circumstances.3
Minutes
before the aircraft engines started, Batista had resigned from his position as
de facto president of the Republic of Cuba. Before leaving, he handed over the
power to a military junta headed by General Eulogio Cantillo, Chief of Joint
Staff of the Cuban Army.2
The
dispatcher of this unique flight wasn’t a ’Q’ Airways employee, as usual, but precisely the very General Cantillo.
A week
earlier, on Christmas Eve 1958, Cantillo, had flown in a helicopter to the
sugar factory named “Cuba” in the east of the Island to meet his
"arch" enemy, Fidel Castro, the then leader of the guerrillas who
dominated a large area of the Sierra Maestra in eastern Cuba. This was the
second time both enemy commanders met. The first was in September of that year
when the already shaky regime of General Batista had no other choice but to
recognize the belligerent group.2
The
Christmas Eve meeting was the final one.
In March
1958, the U.S. had stopped all political and logistical support to Batista.
The army was
demoralized and the rebels took the military and political initiative.
Castro and
Cantillo negotiated a peaceful transition.
According to
Castro, Cantillo promised to deliver him the government along with Batista and
his highest military officers and government officials in order to bring them
to the revolutionary justice. This, indeed, seems rather doubtful, given the
involvement of Cantillo in all the alleged crimes of Batista’s government.
But seven
days later, on the morning of Jan. 1959, Cantillo was on Columbia’s airstrip,
organizing the escape of key government officers and officials of General
Fulgencio Batista's government.
In the hands
of Cantillo was a blacklist of those representatives of the Batista government
who had been denied the entry into the United States. Those had been appointed
for flights to Ciudad Trujillo. The rest would travel to Jacksonville,
Florida.2
To Dominican
Republic should fly the already Cuban ex-president Fulgencio Batista, part of
his family, and several of his closest aides as police chief, General Pedraza,
etc.
On the
flight list to Jacksonville, Florida, was the eldest son of Batista, who had to
board the plane under protest, separated from his family, along with the army
chief, General Tabernilla, and other government officials and minions of his
father " authorized "to enter to the U.S.2
Year and a
half after Batista escaped from Cuba, in August 1960, in the U.S. Senate, there
still were questioning who the author of the Cantillo's black list was.
On August
27, 1960, in Washington began the sessions of the Sub-Committee to investigate
the administration of the internal security of the Committee on the Judiciary
of the United States Senate. Its
president was Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland.4
The
subcommittee's purpose was to determine if a remedial legislation was needed to
fill the cracks in the internal security legislation.
One of the
most difficult issues faced by the subcommittee was that of the security
clearances in order to work in federal institutions as sensitive as the State
Department.
The most
disconcerting situation which the subcommittee faced was the case of William
Arthur Wieland.
The so
called Wieland’s case will be investigated recurrently and extensively from
1960 to 1982, and was used as example in subsequent Senate investigations
because of its tremendous implications for the internal security of the State
Department and the U.S. government in general.6
Wieland
joined the State Department in 1941, and in 1957, he had reached the high
position of Director of the Bureau for Mexico and the Caribbean of the
Undersecretary of State for Latin America.7
The problem
was that Wieland's long career in the State Department apparently had begun and
had developed without the required security clearances. In addition, Wieland
had never even managed to present the necessary identity documents to begin
work on the Department.8
Nobody knew for sure what his real name was
because he sometimes appeared as William Arthur Wieland, others as Arturo
Montenegro and others as William Montenegro.
This led to
questioning sensitive foreign policy decisions in which Wieland was involved.
Wieland was
regarded not only as the main responsible of the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista
in Cuba, but as also the central player of the rise and consolidation of Fidel
Castro in power.
The members
of the subcommittee and several State Department officials who testified before
the subcommittee were suspicious about Wieland as the main instigator of the
suspension of arms shipments to General Batista’s government.9
As Director
of Mexican and the Caribbean affairs, Wieland was able to recommend policies toward
any country of the region and influence his boss, Roy Rubottom, head of the
Undersecretary of State for Latin America in the sense of its implementation.
10
In addition,
Wieland, was pointed out as the mastermind of the international media manipulation
that misshapen the image of Fidel Castro, who was only an unknown guerrilla
leader in the Cuban mountains, in a modern day Robin Hood in the eyes of
American public opinion and the world’s as well.
Apparently,
Wieland had much to do with the interview of Herbert Matthews, the star
reporter of the New York Times, to Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra and the
CBS television documentary on Castro guerrillas in the mountains of eastern
Cuba.11
Wieland had
also managed to replace Arthur Gardner, the American ambassador who was
sympathetic to the Batista government,
with Earl E. T. Smith, who will play an important role in the fall of
the regime.4
Wieland also
violated the most basic rules of the State Department, instructing Smith -who
had no diplomatic experience nor any knowledge on Cuban affairs- to be briefed
in the subject by Herbert Matthews, who was a great fan and literally the bard
of Fidel Castro, rather than a specialist in the Department of State, as
expected in these cases.11
Worse, it
was also very suspicious that Wieland and Rubbotom were in Colombia in 1948, at
the time when Fidel Castro stood out as one of the promoters of social disorder
later baptized as the "bogotazo".12
Some have
even suggested that Wieland was acquainted with Castro since his stays in Cuba
during the decade of the 40 and had certain links with Fabio Grobart, a Soviet
Comintern agent.
One of the
issues in which the subcommittee spent a great deal of its time was in trying
to identify the author of the blacklist on which were inscribed the officials
of the regime of Batista to which they were prohibited from entering the
territory of the United States in that early morning of January 1959.
When the
issue of the "Black List" came up, Mr. J.G. Sourwine -who has been
for many years chief counsel to a Senate subcommittee that sought to uncover
subversion and communism- asked Wieland: "...And you say there was a list.
Where did the list come from? Who made it up, who initiated it?"
Hesitating, Wieland answered in an evasive way: "The list, I believe, was
prepared by the Embassy in Havana and sent to the Department,” Mr. Sourwine
asked more directly: "You had nothing to do with initiating it?" As
many times before, Wieland's answer was indefinite: "I can't be precise,
but I don't think so." Mr. Sourwine tried to be more precise: "You
didn't ask the Embassy for a list of prominent Batistianos who might seek entry
into the United States?" Mr. Wieland's answer was all but precise: "I
think we did, yes, sir." Chairman
Eastland repeated upset. "Do you think 'we' did?" And Wieland, with
ingenuity said: "The Department, yes, sir." Mr. Sourwlne insists:
"Do you recall that you were instructed to do this?" And, Wieland
sidestepped: "I recall that I worked on that list, I received that list,
but I don't know whether I initiated it or someone else did." Senator Dodd
exploded: "I don't understand this "we" business. Some human
beings do those things?" And, with greater ingenuity, Wieland replied
just: "Yes." Really angry, Senator Dodd addressed Wieland: "Can't you help us a little more than
saying "we," you are not sure, and so on? What did you do with
respect to the list? Who gave you the list, who did you give it back to? Those
seem to me to be simple matters." But Wieland stopped him with a bitter
answer: “The list comes in from the Embassy and is received by the Department.
It passed through various hands. I am not trying to dodge the issue here at
all."14
For hours,
the senators and the subcommittee counsel interrogated Wieland without getting
the slightest clue. It was impossible to know the name of the one who ordered
or suggested to make a blacklist.
Wieland
hided himself behind the supposed intricate bureaucratic labyrinth of the State
Department, making it impossible to know who ordered the list, who wrote it and
who took the final decision.
Wieland's
responses to the questions of the subcommittee only indicated that the list
Cantillo was holding in the early hours of January 1959 had materialized from
nowhere. This appeared to have been absorbed by the intricate bureaucracy of
the Department of State, which set to work mechanically, regardless of any
policy, strategy or tactics of the U.S. government's foreign relations.
In the end,
no one could definitely known how the dam list, after allegedly leaving the
American Embassy in Havana, arriving in Washington, circulate through all the
intricacies of the bureaucracy of the State Department, was in time in the
hands of General Cantillo so can he organize the stampede of the Batista regime
officials, and distribute the passengers among the aircrafts that would lead
them to their destination on that first morning of 1959.
What links
existed between the Fidel Castro and Cantillo meetings, Wieland, and the State
Department black list?
Once Cantillo
said good-bye to the ex-president and his entourage at Columbia airport, he
appointed himself Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, demanded the
resignation of the President of the Senate and proclaimed restored the 1940
Constitution. Following its precepts, Cantillo called Carlos M. Piedra, Supreme
Court judge, to whom correspond the presidential succession.2
Fidel Castro
was the head of the bulk of the guerrilla forces in the mountains and the
underground movement in the cities precisely because, basically, Batista had
led a coup de etat and repealed the 1940 Constitution. However, upon learning
Cantillo's decisions, Castro declared him a traitor and unconstitutional the
Provisional Government of Piedra in his first public address by radio from Santiago
de Cuba. Nevertheless, it is astonishing the way in which Fidel Castro treated
Cantillo later.15
When Castro
managed to catch the vast majority of military commanders, police and other
officials of the government of Fulgencio Batista, most of them were sentenced
to the firing squad or to very long prison terms ranging between 25 and 30
years.
General
Cantillo was not only at the top of chain of command of Batista's army, from
which were given the orders that executed most of the military and police
officers condemned by the "revolutionary justice". He was also
accused of treason by Castro himself, allegedly for not having given directly
to him the power along with Batista and his main collaborators.
However,
Cantillo just got 15 years in prison and, without meeting even half of his
sentence, he managed to leave Cuba to the U.S. with his family in the decade of
the sixties.2
It seems
that Cantillo knew what awaited him when he was detained by Jose Ramon "el
Gallego" Fernandez, one of the nearest collaborators of Castro, following
him to prison in quite a confident fashion.16
Concerning
the Wieland Case, along more than 2 years, lots of dubious facts were
accumulated about him and his actions within the Department of State. Some even
accused him of being an agent provocateur from the International Communism.
It is then
when, contrary to all procedures and compartmentalization of the American
executive, the Secretary of State Dean Rusk (prominent member of the Council on
Foreign Relations or CFR, in addition to a trustee of the Rockefeller
Foundation) and President JF Kennedy stepped in in defense of Wieland, who was
declared as a completely reliable and loyal official of the State Department.
17
This will
silence the long process against Wieland, although it will leave lots of
difficult questions, floating in the imponderable.
NOTES:
Photo:
General Cantillo and judge Piedra
http://baracuteycubano.blogspot.com/2010/09/entrevista-de-emilio-ichikawa-al-sr.html- http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/qaw.htm
- Entrevista con Fulgencio Rubén Batista y Godínez. http://www.eichikawa.com/entrevistas/Fulgencio_Batista.html
- Cuba Betrayed. Fulgencio Batista Page 136 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=54321978
- COMMUNIST THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES THROUGH THE
CARIBBEAN HEARINGS http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/us-cuba/gardner-smith.htm
- STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM
WIELAND, http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
- STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM
WIELAND, page iii http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
- STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM
WIELAND, Page 97 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
- STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM
WIELAND, Page 92 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
- STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM
WIELAND, Page 140 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=
- STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM
WIELAND, Page 93 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=
- STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM
WIELAND, Page 161 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=
- STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM
WIELAND, Page 115 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=
- http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-07-24/news/8602230391_1_communist-party-reno-house-committee
- STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM
WIELAND…page 163, http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
- DISCURSO
DE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ EL 8 DE ENERO DE 1959 http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1959/esp/f080159e.html
- Interview with José Ramón Fernández, July 15,
1985 page 45 http://merrick.library.miami.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/chc0189/id/1768/rec/31
- The President's News Conference October 9, 1963 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9460#ixzz1qQdUBqOf
