President Kennedy recognized U.S. responsibility for Batista dictatorship and Cuba’s underdevelopment in the 1950’s

ON October 24, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was interviewed by journalist Jean Daniel Bensaid, who worked for the French daily newspaper L′Express.

While visiting the U.S., Jean Daniel met Ben Bradlee, from Newsweek magazine, and told him of his plans to travel to Cuba, to interview Fidel. Bradlee informed Kennedy, who expressed interest in meeting Jean Daniel, and asking him to convey a message to Fidel.

Dr. Néstor García Iturbe (*) in his article "Cuba – Estados Unidos - Kennedy," written 49 years ago and published October 19, 2012, presents a long excerpt from the French journalist’s interview with Kennedy, in which the President acknowledges U.S. responsibility for the Batista dictatorship and the humiliating economic colonization of Cuba in the 1950’s.

"I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime.

"I approved of the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins.

"In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear."

As García Iturbe points out in his article, the statement could not have been welcomed by Batista supporters in the U.S., including members of the 2506 Brigade who participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion or among those beginning to make their first incursions into U.S. politics. It will not please current Cuban-American politicians who attempt to sugar-coat this era of misery and terror in Cuba.

Certainly it was not well-received by the CIA or the Pentagon, where the solution to the Cuba issue was not dialogue, but rather invasion. •

(*) Member of the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists, the Advanced Institute of International Relations Scientific Council and an adjunct member of the Cuban International Law Association. Writer for various Cuban and international publications and regular lecturer at universities in Cuba, the U.S. and other countries.

GRANMA