Reading the Cuban revolution from Bogotá, 1957–62

Abstract

This article traces the evolution of Colombian responses to the early Cuban revolution. For the governing Liberal Party in particular, developments in Cuba only gradually came to be read in terms of the Cold War. Instead, Colombians primarily interpreted the revolution through the lens of their own recent post-authoritarian transition, as well as a commitment to inter-American diplomacy. Using Colombian, US, and UK government as well as press sources, the article challenges recent historiography on the Cold War in Latin America, to demonstrate how the Cold War was but one reading of Latin American politics in the era of the Cuban revolution.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Teresa Davis, Alec Dun, Thomas Field, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments; and to Diana Andrade Melgarejo for her assistance obtaining the final images. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, February 2012; and the Program in Latin American Studies, Princeton University, April 2013.

Notes

¹ Despatch 658, “Rojas Pinilla: A Review of Developments from His Return through His Senate Trial,” 10 April 1959, 6, 721.00/4-1059, National Archives and Record Administration II [College Park, MD], Record Group 59, Central Decimal File 1955-1959, Box 3000, Folder 721.00(W)/10-158 (hereafter NARA.59.CDF.3000.721.00(W)/10-158); Telegram 639, 17 June 1960, 721.00/6-1760, Records of the US Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Colombia 1960–1963 (hereafter Internal Affairs), Scholarly Resources microfilm, Reel 1. Unless otherwise noted, English-language documents are between the US Embassy, Bogotá, and the Department of State.

² Despatch 563, “Joint WeekA No. 9,” 27 February 1959, 5, 721.00(W)/2-2759, NARA.59.CDF.3000.721.00(W)/10-158; “Cordial bienvenida se tributó a los ‘barbudos,’” El Tiempo, 23 February 1959, 1, 9.

³ Albeto Lleras Camargo, “Discurso en el homenaje al Doctor Eduardo Santos,” El Espectador, 24 September 1955.

⁴ Telegram 637, Department of State to US Embassy, Bogotá, 14 June 1960, 721.00/6-1560, Internal Affairs, Reel 1.

⁵ Diego Montaña Cuéllar, Colombia: País formal y país real, 3rd ed. (Bogotá: Editorial Latina, 1977), 208–11; Bradley Lynn Coleman, Colombia and the United States: The Making of an Inter-American Alliance, 1939–1960 (Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 2008), 47, 63.

⁶ Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2010); Greg Grandin and Gilbert M. Joseph, eds., A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America’s Long Cold War (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).

⁷ Lawrence D. Freedman, “Frostbitten: Decoding the Cold War, 20 Years Later,” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 2 (April 2010): 144, for quote; Federico Romero, “Cold War Historiography at the Crossroads,” Cold War History 14, no. 4 (2014): 685–703.

⁸ Brian Loveman, No Higher Law: American Foreign Policy and the Western Hemisphere since 1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 253–313; also Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, 1–2.

⁹ Matthew Connelly, “Taking Off the Cold War Lens: Visions of North-South Conflict during the Algerian War for Independence,” American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (June 2000): 739.

¹⁰ See, for instance, “La educación militar,” speech by Lleras, 1 June 1959, in El primer gobierno del Frente Nacional, vol. I (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1960), 355.

¹¹ Servicio de Inteligencia Colombiana (hereafter SIC), “Apartes algunos noticieros,” 24 January 1958, 2, Archivo General de la Nación [Bogotá, Colombia], Presidencia de la República, Servicio de Inteligencia Colombiana, Caja 3, Carpeta 4 (1/4), Folio 133, for quote (hereafter AGN.PR.SIC.3.4(1/4).133). All translations are the author’s.

¹² Nicolás Buenaventura, Historia PCC, Tomo II. Cuaderno II: El origen del Frente Nacional (1957–58) (Bogotá: CEIS-INEDO, 1990), 10.

¹³ El Tiempo, 21 September 1957, 4.

¹⁴ Robert Karl, “State Formation, Violence, and Cold War in Colombia, 1957–1966” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2009), 97–8.

¹⁵ El Tiempo, 7 February 1958, 4; El Tiempo, 2 January 1959, 4.

¹⁶ “Trujillo, amenaza de América,” El Tiempo, 23 January 1960, 4, for quote.

¹⁷ SIC, “Apartes algunos noticieros,” 24 January 1958, 2.

¹⁸ El Tiempo, 26 January 1958, 4; and cartoons from the following two days.

¹⁹ El Tiempo, 4 March 1958.

²⁰ For an exception that drew attention to the distinctions, see Jules Dubois, “Lo de Colombia visto de lejos,” El Tiempo, 9 May 1958, 4.

²¹ El Tiempo, 1 January 1959; Despatch 452, “Joint WeekA No. 1,” 2 January 1959, 5, 721.00(W)/1-259, NARA.59.CDF.3000.721.00(W)/10-158, for quotes.

²² Memorandum, “Entrevista con el Comandante Fidel Castro,” interim Chargé D’Affaires Jesús Zarate Moreno to Foreign Relations Minister, 24 March 1959, AGN.PR.Secretaría General.308.65.39-42; “Cordial bienvenida,” 9.

²³ “Entrevista con el Comandante Fidel Castro,” 3–4. The formative role played by the Bogotazo is suggested by Castro’s statement that he had never acted with such idealism as when he was moved to take up arms against a dictatorship in a country not his own. His subsequent reminisces remained unchanged: Carlos Franqui, Diary of the Cuban Revolution, trans. Georgette Felix et al. (New York: Viking Press, 1980), 9–19.

²⁴ “Entrevista con el Comandante Fidel Castro,” 3.

²⁵ Despatch 479, “Joint WeekA No. 3,” 6, 16 January 1959, 721.00/1-1659, NARA.59.CDF.3000.721.00(W)/

10-158. The mainstream US press responded similarly. Richard E. Welch, Response to Revolution: The United States and the Cuban Revolution, 1959–1961 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 161–2.

²⁶ “Entrevista con el Comandante Fidel Castro,” 2. On the trials, see Michelle Chase, “The Trials: Violence and Justice in the Aftermath of the Cuban Revolution,” in Grandin and Joseph, A Century of Revolution, 163–98.

²⁷ “El peligro de los excesos,” El Tiempo, 4 April 1959, 4.

²⁸ “La majestad de la república,” El Tiempo, 23 January 1959, 4.

²⁹ Tad Szulc, The Winds of Revolution: Latin America Today – And Tomorrow (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1963), 121–4.

³⁰ Greg Grandin, “The Liberal Traditions in the Americas: Rights, Sovereignty, and the Origins of Liberal Multilateralism,” American Historical Review 117, no. 1 (February 2012): 83–5, 84 (for quote); Juan Pablo Scarfi, “In the Name of the Americas: The Pan-American Redefinition of the Monroe Doctrine and the Emerging Language of American International Law in the Western Hemisphere, 1898–1933,” Diplomatic History 40, no. 2 (April 2016): 189–218.

³¹ Loveman, No Higher Law, 257, 269–71; Peter H. Smith, Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of US–Latin American Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 124.

³² Álvaro Tirado Mejía, Colombia en la OEA (Bogotá: Banco de la República & El Áncora Editores, 1998), 58 (for quote), 59, 76–83; Martha Ardila, ¿Cambio de norte? Momentos críticos de la política exterior colombiana (Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia & Tercer Mundo Editores, 1991), 113–5.

³³ Tirado Mejía, Colombia, 53, 68–9; Ardila, ¿Cambio de norte?, 115–21; Memoria de Relaciones Exteriores: Presentada al Congreso Nacional 1945 (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1945), xxxv.

³⁴ Tirado Mejía, Colombia, 282–3. Lobbying from other Latin American countries also produced the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, which preceded by months the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Tirado Mejía, Colombia, 276–7). See also Mary Ann Glendon, “The Forgotten Crucible: The Latin American Influence on the Universal Human Rights Idea,” Harvard Human Rights Journal 16 (Spring 2003): 27–39.

³⁵ Quoted in Tirado Mejía, Colombia, 40–1.

³⁶ “Palabras del Señor Presidente al llegar a Washington, DC,” speech by Lleras, 5 April 1960, in El primer gobierno del Frente Nacional, vol. II (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1960), 278.

³⁷ “Discurso ante el Congreso de los Estados Unidos,” speech by Lleras, 6 April 1960, in Primer gobierno, vol. II, 286.

³⁸ Tirado Mejía, Colombia, 106–8; Julio César Turbay Ayala, Memoria de Relaciones Exteriores: Julio de 1959 a Julio de 1960 (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1960), 9–10.

³⁹ Turbay Ayala, Memoria de Relaciones Exteriores, 48.

⁴⁰ Tirado Mejía, Colombia, 294, 291.

⁴¹ “La Declaración de Santiago,” El Tiempo, 19 August 1959, 4 (for quote).

⁴² Compare with Pérez Jiménez’s final months. El Tiempo, 8–10 January 1958.

⁴³ “Freedom Fighter,” Time, 14 April 1957, 54; “Reporting a Revolution,” Time, 9 February 1959, 52; “As Ye Write, So Shall Ye Eat,” Time, 21 September 1959, 68, for quotes.

⁴⁴ “As Ye Write,” 68; “I’ll Be Back,” Time, 9 November 1959, 84, for quote.

⁴⁵ Dubois, “Nuevos errores de Fidel Castro,” El Tiempo, 19 November 1959, 4, 15.

⁴⁶ El Tiempo, 27 November 1959, 4.

⁴⁷ ’Política negativa,” El Tiempo, 25 January 1960, 4.

⁴⁸ Memorandum of conversation, “Call on the President by President Lleras Camargo,” 6 April 1960, 3, Dwight David Eisenhower Library [Abilene, KS], Ann Whitman Files, International, Box 7, Folder Colombia (1).

⁴⁹ “Discurso en la Fundación Carnegie,” speech by Lleras, 11 April 1960, in Primer gobierno, vol. II, 333.

⁵⁰ Renata Keller, Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 3–4; Szulc, The Winds of Revolution, 130–4.

⁵¹ Morris H. Morley, Imperial State and Revolution: The United States and Cuba, 1952–1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 102–6.

⁵² “Satélite en las Antillas,” El Espectador, 5 July 1960.

⁵³ Alfredo Vásquez Carrizosa, “Una amenaza para América,” Hoy, 4 July 1960.

⁵⁴ Vásquez Carrizosa, “La ocupación de Cuba,” La República, 6 July 1960.

⁵⁵ See the Gaitán inquest, and former Conservative president Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez’s El materialismo contra la dignidad del hombre: Su impacto en la vida colombiana (Bogotá: Editorial Lucrós, 1960), 375.

⁵⁶ “Eisenhower: ‘No permitiremos un estado comunista en el hemisferio.’ Kruschev: ‘Defenderemos a Cuba con cohoetes en caso de intervención, ’” El Tiempo, 10 July 1960, 1.

⁵⁷ “Una amenaza del imperialismo soviético,” El Tiempo, 11 July 1960, 4.

⁵⁸ “Instalación del Congreso,” 454–61, 464.

⁵⁹ “Resolución política del Movimiento Obrero Estudiantil-Campesino 7 de Enero (MOEC),” July 1960, 6, AGN. Ministerio de Gobierno [MinGob]. Despacho Ministro [DM].16.134.29; Jorge Bayona, “La OEA y el derecho de autodeterminación de los países latino-americanos,” Documentos Políticos, September 1960, 38–48.

⁶⁰ Henry Patiño Murillo, interviewed by the author, 2 August 2012.

⁶¹ Despatch 686, “Lopez Michelsen Elaborates His Position,” 19 May 1960, 4, 721.00/5-1960, Internal Affairs, Reel 1.

⁶² Memorandum, British Embassy, Bogotá, to Foreign Office, London, 11 August 1960, 2, AK 110311/2, FO 371/148203, Foreign Office Files for Cuba (Public Record Office Class FO 371) (hereafter Foreign Office Files), Adam Matthew Publications microfilm, Part 1, Reel 7; “The Influence of the Cuban Revolution in Latin America,” October 1960, n.p. [8], FO 371/148194, Foreign Office Files, Part 1, Reel 7; Despatch 73, “Joint WeekA No. 31,” 5 August 1960, 3, 721.00(W)/8-560, Internal Affairs, Reel 2.

⁶³ Despatch 213, “Organization of Anti-Communist Campaign,” 7 October 1960, 2, 721.001/10-760, Internal Affairs, Reel 3.

⁶⁴ Despatch 552, “Lopez Michelsen’s Speech Before Liberal Convention,” 3 March 1961, 2, 721.00/3-361, Internal Affairs, Reel 1.

⁶⁵ See, for instance, “Trabajos manuales,” La Nueva Prensa, 5 September 1961, 16.

⁶⁶ Philip Agee, Inside the Company: CIA Diary (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975), 247–8; Stephen G. Rabe, US Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 72, discuss the formation of similar groups in Ecuador and British Guyana, respectively. For transnational links, see Norman A. Bailey, “The Colombian ‘Black Hand’: A Case Study of Neoliberalism in Latin America,” The Review of Politics 27, no. 4 (October 1965): 445–63.

⁶⁷ Karl, “State Formation,” 406–7.

⁶⁸ Bailey, “The Colombian ‘Black Hand,”’ 447–8; various articles, El Siglo, 28 February 1961; El Tiempo, 16 February 1961, 8.

⁶⁹ Despatch 460, “Violence Problem Increases,” 27 January 1961, 2–3, 721.00/1-2761, Internal Affairs, Reel 1; Reunión de Orden Público, Acta, 7 February 1961, 4–10, AGN. MinGob. DM. 22.205.34-40.

⁷⁰ Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (New York: Grove Press, 1997), 476.

⁷¹ Karl, “State Formation,” 360–6.

⁷² Report, “La violencia en Colombia,” n.d. [1962], 65–6, Archivo de la Presidencia [Bogotá, Colombia], Despacho Señor Presidente, 1962, Caja 4, Carpeta Orden Publico (hereafter APR.DSP.1962.4.Orden Publico).

⁷³ Comando General de las Fuerzas Militares, “Informe complementario no. 8 del cuadro de violencia,” 21 February 1961, 2, APR.SG.1961.3.Fuerzos Militares Informe, for quote.

⁷⁴ Ibid., 12, 15; Karl, “State Formation,” 386–95, 457.

⁷⁵ Memorandum, British Embassy to Foreign Office, 3 February 1961, 2–3, FO 371/156167, Foreign Office Files, Part 1, Reel 16.

⁷⁶ Reunión de Orden Público, Acta, 11–12; Consejo de Ministros (hereafter CM), Acta No. 98, 14 February 1961, APR.CM.42.

⁷⁷ Patiño Murillo, interview; Juan Manuel Saldarriaga Betancur, De la dictadura al comunismo (Medellín: [no publisher], 1962), 58–9 (‘Trojan Horse’). ‘[A]lready doubtful’ of Castro’s direction by late 1960, Patiño spent a month in Cuba alongside members of the Colombian Communist Youth. His disenchantment became irreversible when, he claims, the Cubans offered him weapons training.

⁷⁸ ‘Resolución política,” 10; Karl, “State Formation,” 435–44, 453–4.

⁷⁹ Karl, “State Formation,” 354–6, 364–6.

⁸⁰ Letter, Lleras to President John F. Kennedy, 14 March 1961, in El primer gobierno del Frente Nacional, vol. III (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1962), 175 (‘with intense’); “Address at a White House Reception for Members of Congress and for the Diplomatic Corps of the Latin American Republics,” speech by Kennedy, 13 March 1961 <http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Speeches/Address-at-a-White-House-Reception-for-Members-of-Congress-and-for-the-Diplomatic-Corps-of-the-Latin.aspx> .

⁸¹ Susana Romero Sánchez, “El miedo a la revolución: Interamericanismo y anticomunismo en Colombia, 1958–1965” (MA thesis, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, 2007), Ch. 1.

⁸² “Mensaje al Congreso de 1961,” speech by Lleras, 20 July 1961, in El primer gobierno, vol. III, 292–3.

⁸³ CM, Acta No. 98, 14 February 1961, n.p., APR.CM.42.

⁸⁴ Tirado Mejía, Colombia, 111–4, 117–8.

⁸⁵ Romero Sánchez, “El miedo,” 138–43.

⁸⁶ Memoranda No. 1-3 (Memorandum No. 3, 2–3 [for quote]), attached to Department of State Circular CA-11223, “Colombian Iniative for Handling Cuban Problem,” 26 June 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library [Boston, MA], National Security Files, Box 26A, Folder Colombia General; Romero Sánchez, “El miedo,” 144.

⁸⁷ Karl, “State Formation,” 453–8.

⁸⁸ CM, Acta No. 114, 11 October 1961, 946, APR.CM.42.

⁸⁹ Telegram 234, 12 October 1961, 1–2, 721.00/10-1261, Internal Affairs, Reel 1.

⁹⁰ CM, Acta No. 114, 945, APR.CM.42; Acta No. 115, 12 October 1961, 952, APR.CM.42; Acta No. 118, 17 November 1961, 971, APR.CM.42.

⁹¹ Tirado Mejía, Colombia, 116.

⁹² Memorandum, “Cuban-Latin American Relations,” Canadian Embassy, Havana, to Department of External Affairs, Ottawa, 13 December 1961, 2, Foreign Office Files, Part 3, Reel 26.

⁹³ Telegram No. 915, British Embassy, Havana, to Foreign Office, London, 9 December 1961, Foreign Office Files, Part 2, Reel 16.

⁹⁴ CM, Acta No. 119, 9 December 1961, 975, APR.CM.42.

⁹⁵ Memorandum, British Embassy, Bogotá, to Foreign Office, London, 12 December 1961, 5–7, Foreign Office Files, Part 2, Reel 16.

⁹⁶ Telegram, Department of State to US Embassy, Buenos Aires, 26 December 1961, in Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. XII, American Republics <http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v12/d127> (‘Castro’s’); Tirado Mejía, Colombia, 121–7, 123 (‘the principles’).

⁹⁷ “El gobierno cree que se apoya a los bandoleros desde afuera,” El Tiempo, 23 January 1962, 1, 12.

⁹⁸ CM, Acta No. 120, 21 December 1961, APR.CM.42.

⁹⁹ Karl, “State Formation,” 470–2.

¹⁰⁰ Norman Bailey, interviewed by the author, May 2010; Bailey, “The Colombian ‘Black Hand,”’ 458.