Kennedy’s killer also killed U.S. Cuban détente in 1963

 

About this time 58 years ago an extraordinary development began in U.S. Cuban relations. After 4 years of embargoing, invading and pulling back from the brink of nuclear war over Cuba, both JFK and Fidel Castro began to negotiate détente.

They did so thru secret, back channel emissaries, diplomat William Attwood and journalist Jean Daniel for JFK; Cuban officials Rene Vallejo and Carlos Lechuga for Castro. To do so openly would have brought the hardliners of both governments down on them, sabotaging any chance of detente.

JFK and Castro both had an epiphany after the October, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. So did Russia’s leader Nikita Khrushchev who served as a mentor of sorts to both leaders that Cold War hysterics was unsustainable and that shared interests in peace dictated negotiation.

Kennedy’s pivot resulted in the June 10, 1963 peace speech at American University, and the limited Test Ban Treaty he got ratified in September. Castro’s pivot was his understanding from Khrushchev that the missile crisis achieved a JFK guarantee he would not again invade Cuba.

Both leaders wanted a normalization of relations. Kennedy told a colleague that U.S. support of Cuban dictator Batista from 1933 to 1959 was unconscionable and the Cuban revolution was inevitable and necessary. Castro felt he could trust Kennedy based on his clear move toward ending the Cold War after the October, 1962 nuclear scare.

On November 22, 1963, French journalist Jean Daniel and Castro were lunching in Havana, discussing Kennedy’s intentions and goals for the upcoming secret summit. They were interrupted by a phone call advising Castro of JFK’s assassination. Castro solemnly told Daniel, “Everything is going to change.”

That change was Kennedy’s successor LBJ slamming the door shut on U.S. Cuban détente.

Here we are 58 years later with the Cuban embargo still cruelly punishing the Cuban people in the delusional belief it will affect the regime change America has championed for 62 years.

JFK’s assassination altered the arc of American history in many ways. One of the least well known is its scuttling of likely U.S. Cuban détente early on in the Cuban Revolution.

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