FIDEL CASTRO ONCE CALLED IT "AN ELEC- tronic war between David and Goliath...that Biblical character [who] was defeated by his stupidity."I The Cuban leader was referring to T.V. Marti, the most recent in a long line of U.S. government propaganda stations directed at Cuba. In March, the U.S. Information Agency began experi- mental television transmissions to Cuba from a blimp float- ing over South Florida.' The new station, named after Jos6 Marti, nineteenth-century hero of Cuban independence, broadcasts on a standard Cuban television channel each night that weather permits the blimp to be sent aloft. Its program- ming includes dubbed U.S. sitcoms ("Kate and Allie"), sporting events, music videos and other seemingly innocu- ous entertainment, intertwined with the U.S. government version of Cuban domestic news. The cost to taxpayers will be nearly $40 million during the first two years and approxi- mately $15 million annually thereafter. Describing it as "television aggression," the Cuban gov- ernment immediately began jamming the signal, claiming its "legitimate right to reject any action against its sovereignty.'" After President Bush gave final approval to the project in August, Cuba stood poised to retaliate by transmitting its own radio broadcasts throughout the continental United States, and thereby causing serious disruption to the U.S. broadcast system. "Castro likes to tout his revolutionary credentials," said un a riavana sireei: u.z. propaganda seeKs Io neigmen discontent with images of "development" Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-SC) early this year, "but he cannot begin to match the revolutionary potential of television." 4 Proponents of T.V. Martf like Sen. Hollings claim that President Fidel Castro's angry response is indicative of his fear that U.S. news and entertainment will facilitate the downfall of his regime. Cuban officials interviewed over the past six months, however, argue that sovereignty, not the content of the broadcasts, is the central issue. They say the Cuban government welcomes Western programming and Havana has sought to negotiate exchange agreements with public and commercial television in the United States. A flow of media between the United States and Cuba is inevitable, they say, given advances in communication technologies and the proximity of the two countries. What they do not want is U.S. programming forced on them as an intervention in their internal affairs. Any sign of official weakness in responding to this challenge, they be- lieve, would invite domestic opposition and further U.S. NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS John Spicer Nichols teaches at Pennsylvania State Uni- versity and writes frequently on communications and U.S. foreign policyde Cuba!" ("Long live Christ, Hallelujah, and an end to the blockade of Cuba!") Two years later, when the political winds in Washington changed, Espinosa de- nounced el didlogo in Soldier of Fortune magazine, claiming he had been recruited by Cuban intelligence to spy on the community. The agreements reached allowed 3,000 political pris- oners, former prisoners and members of divided families to emigrate, and permitted Cubans living abroad to visit the island-even many who had participated in military actions against Cuba. Initially, right-wing groups tried to intimidate people by bombing travel agencies that ar- rapged family visits, threatening to bomb planes, and harassing those who did travel. For example, in 1979 Rosario Moreno, head of a Los Angeles travel agency that arranged trips to Cuba, came home to find her two children cowering in a corner after shots were fired through her living room window. That same year, over twenty bombs went off in the homes and businesses of supporters of an opening toward Cuba. Carlos Mufiiz, a founder of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, and Eulalio Negrin, who participated in the dialogue with the Cuban government, were both assassinated.) 4 Mufiiz, a 26-year- old father of two, was driving home from his job at a travel aggression. "Opposition can not be built with lies and psy- chological warfare," Fidel Castro said of T.V. Marti earlier this year. But, he added, "Some of those subversive plans [of the U.S. government] might be successful if we sit idly by and do nothing."' T.V. Marti is, in essence, an electronic version of the Platt Amendment, which Cuba was forced to incorporate into its constitution in 1901 as a condition for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. It gave the United States the right to intervene at will in Cuban affairs. While sitcoms and news are unlikely to cause the unraveling of the Cuban Revolution, T.V. Marti constitutes an overt intervention in violation of international telecommunications regulations that recognize the sover- eignty of national broadcasting systems. A well-developed body of international law grants each country the right and responsibility to decide, free from outside interference, how its electronic media are organized, financed, programmed and regulated. In other words, what appears on U.S. television screens is the business of the United States, not Canada, Mexico or Cuba. This simple logic is the basis for the highly technical treaties that govern international telecommunications, which reserve standard radio and television frequencies for domestic use only and confine cross-national broadcasting to shortwave bands. Despite the lack of an international enforcement mechanism, most countries do comply with these accords. The United States and Cuba are notable exceptions. H OSTILE BROADCASTING HAS LONG BEEN A primary tool of Washington's policy toward the Cuban regime. Within months after Fidel Castro came to power, clandestine stations calling for the overthrow of the new government began operating from the United States or with U.S. government support. At least a score of these stations agency in San Juan, Puerto Rico that arranged trips to Cuba for Cubans, when gunmen riddled his car with bullets. He died the next day. Nevertheless, in the first year after the dialogue, more than 120,000 Cubans visited the island. Once the Right realized that people were going to Cuba anyway, they began encouraging travellers to bring back "intelligence" information about life in Cuba and to cause as much damage as they could while on the island-by flushing articles of clothing into hotel toilets, etc. Much to the chagrin of the Cuban-American Left, visitors often came back more embittered than before. Many felt that the Cuban government was exploiting their desire to see relatives by charging outrageous prices, which at one point reached $1500 for a one-week trip from Miami, even if the traveller stayed with relatives. The Cuban government viewed visits by relatives as a source of foreign exchange. Special stores were opened where visitors could pay top dollar for consumer goods in short supply, to give as presents. The corruption they encoun- tered in Cuba required them to hand out still more money, and further antagonized them. The Cuban-American Left's hopes that the trips would encourage good will were dashed. have broadcast to Cuba over the past three decades, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. By any measure, it has been the most concentrated propaganda blitz in hemispheric history. 6 The CIA plan for covert actions against Cuba which President Eisenhower approved in March 1960 included the establishment of a clandestine radio station. Two months later, Radio Swan began operations from Swan Island, a tiny dot in the Caribbean claimed by the United States. The mission of the station was to soften up Cuban audiences for the impending Bay of Pigs invasion. Produced by anti-Castro exile groups in Miami, the broadcasts mixed traditional Cuban music, soap operas, and other entertainment with venomous attacks on the regime. "Radio Swan is not a radio station but a cage of hysterical parrots," Cuban government radio responded. 7 After the Bay of Pigs debacle, the station was renamed "Radio Americas" and moved to Florida, where it continued to urge the Cuban people to burn crops, sabotage public utilities, and rise up against Fidel Castro. The inability to maintain complete control over its do- mestic airwaves has been a major source of aggravation to the Cuban revolutionary leadership. Fidel Castro placed great importance on electronic media in the creation and consoli- dation of his regime. During the revolutionary war, he effectively used Radio Rebelde, a clandestine station oper- ated from his mountain stronghold, to harass the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. After Batista fell, Castro capitalized on Cuba's relatively well-developed radio and television sys- tem to mobilize support for his revolutionary government. Herbert Matthews, the late New York Times editorialist and chronicler of the Cuban revolution, described the phe- nomenon: "... a religious faith which came pouring over the radio waves and through the television screens in the words and presence of Fidel Castro. I coined a phrase at the time: VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 3 (NOVEMBER 1990) 31Cuba II The effect on the Cuban population was equally dra- matic. With visitors bringing in consumer goods, the black market surged. Those who did not have relatives in the United States or other countries did not receive the same benefits, and many objected to the uneven distribu- tion this fostered. The release of prisoners also exacer- bated tensions inside Cuba; the United States dragged its feet processing visas, in effect creating a bottleneck of discontented people.' 5 On April 6, 1980, a group of Cubans in search of asylum crashed their car into the Peruvian Embassy in Havana, killing a guard. When the Peruvian government refused to turn them over to Cuban authorities, Cuba withdrew its guards and announced that anyone who wanted to leave the country should go to the Embassy. Within days more than 10,000 Cubans jammed the com- pound. The government then opened the port of Mariel, west of Havana. Like the Camarioca incident in 1965, Cuban-Americans sailed from Miami to pick up relatives. Over the next few months, over 120,000 Cubans were processed by U.S. immigration officials. Mariel was devastating for progressive Cuban-Ameri- cans. They had been convinced that the Cuban Revolution enjoyed broad support. Mariel not only proved to the government by television. The Revolution came in a flood of talk, as Fidel exhorted, explained, reasoned with, and aroused Cuba's millions day after day, night after night, four, five, six hours at a time. The world was amused; Cubans listened enthralled." 8 Not only did Castro use television as a tool of governance, he also felt the media were precious resources that must be used to solve the country's mammoth social and economic problems. The nationwide coordination of print and broad- cast media in 1961 to help eliminate illiteracy was one of the revolution's finest moments. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the White House ordered an intensification of U.S. broadcasting to Cuba. Overt radio broadcasts under the auspices of the USIA's Voice of America began in November 1962, while planning for additional covert broadcasting continued. A month later, USIA Direc- tor Edward R. Murrow reported in a secret memo to President Kennedy that the United States had developed the capability to beam television programs to Cuba from airborne transmit- ters. The declassified memo describes how two specially equipped DC-6 aircraft flying at a maximum of 18,000 feet just outside Cuban airspace could deliver U.S. television propaganda to Cuban audiences.' The project was part of Operation Mongoose, the infa- mous CIA campaign to unseat Castro. Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, chief of the operation and the United States' premier psychological warrior, was eager to deploy the airborne television system. But Murrow urged caution. The legendary broadcast journalist, whose televised denuncia- tion of Sen. Joseph McCarthy helped stem the anticom- munist hysteria of the 1950s, appreciated the political power of the medium and recognized its potential for abuse. In his memo, Murrow counseled the President: "We should not use this equipment to place television in Cuba under other than Relatives reunite in Havana, 1981: Both Havana and Washington have played politics with family visits world that many problems existed, it raised doubts about whether the revolution was as irreversible as they had assumed. The Cuban-American Right renewed its calls the most grave circumstances."'" Murrow and his aides expressed concern that Cuba could easily jam the T.V. signals and might be tempted to retaliate against U.S. broad- casters. He recommended that the television system be used only if the United States invaded. Kennedy took his advice. OR THE NEXT TWO DECADES, U.S. PROPA- ganda broadcasts to Cuba continued at a low ebb. Voice of America reduced its Cuban programming transmitted from Florida, and most of the clandestine stations disap- peared as the CIA redirected its attention and resources elsewhere. But in the 1980s, the means and ends of the 1960s were revived. Describing the programs of the USIA as "the greatest weapon of all," President Reagan ordered the larg- est peacetime expansion of U.S. propaganda activities ever." Growth of the USIA budget during this period far exceeded, on a percentage basis, the defense build-up for which the Reagan Administration is noted. Of course, a primary target was Cuba. In 1985, the Reagan Administration launched Radio Marti to supplant the old VOA service that had broadcast to Cuba since the Missile Crisis. The new station, operating on both shortwave and a standard AM broadcasting frequencies, beams 24 hours of programming to Cuba daily, at an annual cost of approxi- mately $12 million. The Cuban government immediately lashed back by suspending an important immigration agree- ment with the United States, and it briefly disrupted U.S. commercial radio broadcasts as far away as Utah and Iowa as a "test and demonstration" of its ability to respond. Cuba and the United States soon realized that the lack of an immigration agreement hurt both sides, and in 1986 they began secret negotiations in Mexico. Cuba wanted Radio Marti removed from the air as a pre-condition; the United States refused. Finally, in 1987, Cuban negotiators agreed to NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS - -- "---for invasion. It immediately became apparent when the boatlift immigrants (dubbed "Marielitos") landed on U.S. shores, that they were not the white middle-class exiles of the 1960s. Many were dark-skinned and most of them were poor or working-class. A significant number had criminal records, and there were also many homosexuals--as unwelcome among Cuban-Americans in Miami as they had been at home. Those calling for an invasion of Cuba expected that the Marielitos would join them in their plans, but they showed little interest; they had left the island for reasons other than clearly defined anticommunism. Many Cuban-Ameri- cans began distancing themselves from the new immi- grants. Some claimed that sending the Marielitos was a Castro plot to tarnish the image of the community. Rumors spread that the Marielitos were not really Cubans. "There were not that many Blacks in Cuba," was an oft-heard remark, "These are Angolans." The Marielitos added a new dimension to the already diverse Cuban-American community. After 30 years of socialism, these newer arrivals tended to be politically more heterogeneous and liberal than the immigrants of the 1960s, and-perhaps because their memories of the drop the demand in exchange fora U.S. promise to seek equal access for Cuba to U.S. broadcast frequencies. In principle, the Cuban position was perfectly reasonable. If the U.S. government could broadcast to the Cuban people, the Cuban government should be able to broadcast to the U.S. people. In practice, a Cuban station comparable to Radio Marti would be an engineering, legal, and political nightmare for any U.S. administration. The standard broadcasting band in the United States is jam-packed. Any attempt by the federal government to clear just one AM channel for Cuban use would seriously disrupt the system, undoubtedly would be challenged in the courts, and would be intensely unpopu- lar with large sectors of the political spectrum. Further, U.S. negotiators insisted that the proposed Cu- ban station comply with the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission and international telecom- munications regulations. Yet Radio Marti operates without approval of the Cuban Ministry of Communications and in apparent violation of international agreements. 2 With U.S. negotiators unable to grant Cuba a broadcasting quid pro quo, the talks stalled. When the United States announced plans for T.V. Marti in 1988, they broke down completely. Because their efforts at negotiation were re- warded with U.S. escalation, Cuban officials now believe they must stand fast against T.V. Marti in order to forestall additional U.S. tests of Cuba's sovereignty."' C UBA, TOO, HAS A HISTORY OF HOSTILE broadcasting to the United States. Shortly after the CIA launched Radio Swan in 1960, Cuba responded with Radio Havana, a shortwave service which, particularly in the early years, broadcast virulent propaganda calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government and its Latin American allies. From 1962 to 1966, Cuba beamed Radio Free Dixie on homeland were fresher--they wanted closer ties to Cuba. However, their arrival coincided with the ascendancy of the New Right, and their potential to create a political alternative was limited from the start. WITH THE ADVENT OF THE REAGAN AD- ministration in 1980, all hopes of better relations evaporated. Cuba responded to Reagan's threats and economic pressure by closing the doors to the Cuban- American community. First, it restricted the number allowed to travel to Cuba per month. And in 1985, when the Reagan Administration launched Radio Marti, a Voice of America station aimed specifically at Cuba-with the highly visible participation of the right-wing Cuban American National Foundation-the Cuban government ended all travel by the community. Even the Antonio Maceo Brigade was shut out. Cuba also suspended the immigration accord which would have allowed 20,000 Cubans to emigrate to the United States each year. Cuban- American progressives, who had defined their political agenda by defending their right to travel to Cuba, became further isolated in the community. Now it was Cuba who was denying entrance to the island. Progressives were reduced to negotiating for their own entry visas.' 6 standard AM broadcast frequencies to the southern United States. It routinely encouraged North American blacks to burn their cities and commit other violent, subversive acts. But, in comparison to U.S. efforts, Cuban counter-broadcast- ing has been sporadic, low-powered and financially modest. Since Radio Marti was announced in the early 1980s, however, Cuba has been preparing to take a dramatically more aggressive stance on the broadcasting battlefield. If the United States continues to be an uninvited guest on Cuban domestic airwaves, then Cuba promises to respond in kind. It recently built a massive arsenal of high-powered radio transmitters whose signal could easily be heard throughout the continental United States. Some of these monster Cuban transmitters have 500 kilowatts of power-ten times that of any radio station licensed in the United States.' 4 A technical study by the National Association of Broad- casters concluded that such a Cuban action would "wreak interference havoc from New York to California."I Scores, perhaps hundreds, of U.S. radio stations would lose large chunks of their coverage areas to invading Cuban signals. This prospect has prompted U.S. broadcasters to lobby the White House and Capitol Hill to reconsider T.V. Marti. Cuba defeated the U.S.-sponsored invasion force at the Bay of Pigs, survived numerous other covert actions of the Central Intelligence Agency, and resisted decades of U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure, but it has never been able to fully protect itself from a massive U.S. electronic assault. T.V. Marti differs little in basic concept from its numerous predecessors. More than a radical escalation, it indicates business as usual in U.S. efforts to influence domestic Cuban affairs. But the intrusive properties of radio waves cut both ways. A spiral of ever-more powerful, unregulated radio and television broadcasts across the Straits of Florida are in the long-term interests of neither side. Broadcast Wars 1. Granma Weekly Review, April 22, 1990. 2. Television is line-of-sight broadcasting. Therefore, TV Marti must transmit from very high altitude in order to reach Havana, which is beyond the horizon from any ground-level point in Florida. 3. "TV Marti takes off but will it fly?" Broadcasting, April 2, 1990. 4. Neil Hickey, "TV or not TV? America's bold plan to'invade' Cuba with television," TV Guide, Feb. 10, 1990. 5. Granma Weekly Review, April 22, 1990. 6. For details, see Lawrence C. Soley and John S. Nichols, Clandestine Radio Broadcasting (New York: Praeger), pp. 163-189. 7. David Wise and Thomas Ross, The Invisible Government (New York: Random House, 1964), p. 334. 8. Herbert L. Matthews, Revolution in Cuba: An Essay in Understanding (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975), p. 126. 9. John S. Nichols, "The Problem of Radio Interference," in Wayne S. Smith and Esteban Morales Dominguez (eds.), Subject to Solution: Problems in Cuban-U.S. Relations (Boulder: Lynne Rien- ner Publishers, 1988), pp. 124-137 & 145-153. 10. Edward R. Murrow, "Memorandum for The President, Air- borneTelevision Capability," Dec. 3, 1962. President's Office Files, Departments and Agencies USIA, John F. Kennedy Library. The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Suzanne K. Forbes, Foreign Policy Archivist at the JFK Library. 11. New York Times, Oct. 5, 1981. 12. Washington Post, July 10, 1986; New York Times, Nov. 21, 1987; Granma Weekly Review, Nov. 29, 1987. 13. Author's interview with Carlos Aldana Escalante, Cuba's chief negotiator at the Mexico meetings, Dec. 23, 1989. 14. National Association of Broadcasters, "Cuban Interference to United States A.M. Broadcast Stations," testimony before U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Radio Broadcasts into Cuba, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., July & Aug. 1982, p. 274; see also, John Spicer Nichols, "Video Invasion," The Nation, April 2, 1990. 15. National Association of Broadcasters, "Cuban Interference," p. 274.
