Henry Kissinger 'considered Cuba air strikes' in 1976

1 October 2014 Last updated at 15:49 GMT

Henry Kissinger 'considered Cuba air strikes' in 1976

US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger drew up plans to "smash Cuba" with
air strikes nearly 40 years ago, government papers obtained by
researchers show.

He was angered by Cuba's 1976 military intervention in Angola and was
considering retaliation if Cuban forces were deployed elsewhere in Africa.

The information comes from documents declassified at the request of the
National Security Archive.

They show that Mr Kissinger was eager for the US to stand up to Cuba.

The documents from the Gerald R Ford Presidential Library show that US
officials devised plans to attack ports and military installations in
Cuba in addition to measures ordered by Mr Kissinger to deploy Marine
battalions based at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay to "clobber" the
Cubans.

Anger
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Kissinger... was insulted that a small country would ruin his plans for
Africa and was essentially prepared to bring the imperial force of the
United States on Fidel Castro's head"

Peter Kornbluh
The government documents are published in Back Channel to Cuba, a new
book by American University professor William M LeoGrande and the
director of the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project,
Peter Kornbluh.

Mr Kornbluh told the New York Times that Mr Kissinger was angered by
what he felt was the decision by then Cuban President Fidel Castro to
pursue his own foreign policy agenda in Africa rather than normalise
relations with the United States.

The newspaper reports that Mr Kissinger has refused to comment on its story.

Mr Kissinger, secretary of state from 1973-77, initially supported
underground efforts to improve relations with Cuba.

But the newly released documents show he was infuriated by Cuban
President Fidel Castro's decision in late 1975 to send troops to Angola
to help the newly independent nation fend off attacks from South Africa
and right-wing guerrillas.

"Kissinger, the global chessboard player, was insulted that a small
country would ruin his plans for Africa and was essentially prepared to
bring the imperial force of the United States on Fidel Castro's head,"
Mr Kornbluh was quoted in the newspaper as saying.

"You can see in the conversation with [US President] Gerald Ford that he
is extremely apoplectic," Mr Kornbluh said, describing the then
secretary of state's language about doing harm to Cuba as
"quintessentially aggressive".

"I think we are going to have to smash Castro," Mr Kissinger told Mr
Ford in a White House meeting in February 1976, adding Mr Ford should
defer action until after the presidential election that November.

"I agree," Mr Ford said.

US contingency plans drawn up on the options warned any military
aggression by the US in Cuba could lead to a direct confrontation with
the USSR.

"The circumstances that could lead the United States to select a
military option against Cuba should be serious enough to warrant further
action in preparation for general war," one document said.

The plans were never undertaken, as Jimmy Carter was elected president
that year.

Mr Kissinger's planned intervention came 15 years after a group of some
1,500 Cuban exiles trained and financed by the CIA launched an ill-fated
invasion of Cuba from the sea in the Bay of Pigs.

The plan was to overthrow Fidel Castro and his revolution.

Instead, it turned into a humiliating defeat which pushed Cuba firmly
into the arms of the Soviet Union and has soured US-Cuban relations to
this day.

Supporters of Mr Kissinger say he played a key role in US foreign policy
under presidents Nixon and Ford at the height of the Cold War, pointing
out that he brokered detente with the Soviet Union, paved the way for
President Nixon's landmark visit to China and who, they argue, negated
the Communist threat in Latin America.

They argue that he was instrumental in securing peace deals in the
Middle East and Vietnam.

But critics say he was the orchestrator of the controversial carpet
bombing of neutral Cambodia during the Vietnam War and helped Pakistan,
Greece, Indonesia and Chile to embark on acts of repression.

Source: BBC News - Henry Kissinger 'considered Cuba air strikes' in 1976
- http://www.bbc.com/news/29441281