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Carlos Alberto Montaner. Posted on Wed, Dec. 11, 2002 in
The
Miami Herald
When President Bush was elected, Fidel Castro perceived that triumph as a
dangerous threat. Bush was the first American president to speak Spanish -- or
something like it -- and he swore that his priority was the United States'
relations with Mexico and the rest of Latin America.
Earlier, Bill Clinton's two terms had elapsed amid a great indifference
toward the region, a ''benign negligence'' that allowed Havana to initiate a
strong neopopulist trend -- profoundly anti-American -- around the so-called
''Sao Paulo forum,'' an international gathering of pro-communist political
parties and groups that are enemies of the market economy and democratic rules.
Castro's alarm was short-lived. When Bush appointed his Cabinet, Castro, who
believes himself an ''Americanologist,'' realized that only one official could
become an obstacle to his plans for political expansion: Undersecretary of State
Otto Reich, a Cuban-born diplomat ready to defend Bush's anti-communist policy.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell seemed
to worry only about European and Middle Eastern affairs -- terrorism had not yet
monopolized the attention of American society -- and knew nothing about events
in Latin America.
Castro had even read, with much pleasure, a speech made by Powell in 1995 in
which the former general advocated a lifting of the embargo and a later
statement where Powell acknowledged the ''positive accomplishments'' of the
revolution.
Clearly, Powell did not have a militantly hostile attitude toward the Cuban
dictatorship. Like many other Americans, Powell thought that Castro's death and
the passing of time would contribute to solving the conflicts between the two
nations.
This analysis immediately dictated the ''active measures'' taken by the
Cuban government. Castro's strategy was to launch a ''character assassination''
campaign to ruin Reich's image. That's what Spanish Army gunners call an
''elevation shot.'' You aim at Reich, but the real target is Bush.
Without Reich in the State Department, there would be no one to counteract
the offensive against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, to condemn the Cuban
dictatorship or create a coherent response to the anti-American, anti-market
propaganda that flowed from Havana and spread through the party grapevine
organized by Cuba from Mexico to Argentina, with special emphasis in Brazil.
The men assigned to demolish Reich's image were Gen. Eduardo Delgado
Izquierdo, chief of the Interior Ministry's General Directorate of Intelligence,
and Rolando Alfonso Borges of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. They
immediately began to spread defamatory reports to try to discredit Reich. They
accused him of being a ''warmonger,'' a ''terrorist'' and a ''Miami mafioso.''
Actually, those who knew Reich in Venezuela, where he was U.S. ambassador from
1986 to 1989, remember him as a moderate and discreet man who limited himself to
carrying out the instructions of his government.
The attacks against Reich were generated in Havana but were carried out in
the United States by Bush's enemies. One of them was Sen. Christopher Dodd,
D.-Conn., over whose special assistant, Janice O'Connell, Havana hoped to exert
a strong influence. Dodd was insistent on pushing Reich away from inter-American
affairs. He didn't care what other section Reich could be transferred to. Where
Reich got in his way was Latin America. Other senators, like Michael Enzi,
R-Wyo., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., sided with Dodd. Both agreed on one point:
They believed that the embargo against Cuba would be progressively repealed if
no one in the State Department were to defend it, and both came from states that
planned to export meat and grain to the island.
Finally, Powell gave in. There had been friction between Powell and Reich
because of a step taken by Reich at the request of an FBI obsessed with U.S.
security: to deny a visa to a Cuban intelligence officer, Pedro Alvarez, and to
expel four Cuban diplomats who maintained a criminal relationship with an
American spy in the Pentagon who reported to Havana. The spy, Ana Belen Montes,
was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison for her activities.
The FBI wanted to expel 14 Cubans. At the State Department, an attitude of
appeasement prevailed.
When Reich left his job as undersecretary of state for hemisphere affairs,
Cuban officials toasted with rum. The statement attributed to Castro has the
ring of the comandante in a moment of euphoria: ''Bush's hands are now outside
Latin America.'' He didn't even mention Reich. The enemy that needed to be
neutralized was Bush.
And Castro has achieved this, unless the president and Powell recognize the
trap they've fallen into. | 
