Washington, D.C., April 29, 2021 – John F. Kennedy may have secretly warned Fidel Castro against executing survivors of the Bay of Pigs invasion 60 years ago this month while also dangling a pledge of strict non-intervention if the Cuban leader spared their lives, according to new evidence posted today by the nongovernmental National Security Archive. Kennedy’s secret channel to Castro, the records suggest, was the president of Brazil, João Goulart. The declassified Brazilian and U.S. documents, along with a provocative journalistic report from the period, help to illuminate a residual mystery linked to that iconic event in Cold War and U.S.-Cuban history. The episode is a fresh case of "back channel" communications between Washington and Havana at a time when they lacked direct diplomatic relations, and a new instance of Brazil acting as a third-party mediator, or at least a communications conduit, in that relationship. Brazil’s role climaxed during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Compiled and edited by George Washington University historian James G. Hershberg based on his research on Brazil, Cuba, and the Cold War, today’s posting examines a tense moment in the Kennedy Administration's more than twenty-month struggle to gain the release of the nearly 1,200 CIA-trained, financed, and equipped anti-Castro Cuban exiles between their failed April 1961 invasion attempt and their release by Fidel Castro in December 1962. In late March and early April 1962, the captives went on trial in Havana for treason, and U.S. officials feared they might receive harsh punishments, or even be executed – triggering an untimely crisis, sharply intensified public pressure on the Cuban issue, and even a possible U.S. military intervention. The U.S. and Brazilian evidence presented here tells, at least in part, the story of the Brazilian president's public appeal to Castro, at U.S. behest, to spare the lives of the Bay of Pigs invaders. In addition, the new materials pose the question whether he also secretly relayed a more explicit appeal reflecting JFK's "thinking" (as conveyed by aide Richard "Dick" Goodwin to Brazil's ambassador in Washington) and a de facto carrot-and-stick proposition. |
