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Kubában Fulgencio Batista rendszerének megdöntése (1959. január 1.) után hamarosan megromlott a Fidel Castro vezette új rendszer és az Egyesült Államok viszonya, majd 1961. január 3-án Washington megszakította diplomáciai kapcsolatait Kubával. Közben – már 1960 májusában, tehát még Eisenhower elnöksége idején – megkezdődtek a disznó-öböli invázió előkészületei. Az 1961. január 20-án beiktatott John F. Kennedy elnöksége idejére a CIA is támogatást és finanszírozást nyújtott a Castro-rendszer megdöntése érdekében partraszállásra készülő kubai emigránsoknak. Az amerikaiak abban reménykedtek, hogy az invázió kiváltja a Castro-ellenes csoportok lázadását, és azonnal csatlakoznak a partra szálló emigránsokhoz. Az 1961. április 17-én mintegy 1500 kubai emigráns részvételével a szigetország délnyugati partjainál lévő Disznó-öbölben végrehajtott akció azonban sikertelennek bizonyult, a kubai milíciák 72 óra alatt visszaverték a támadást. A Castro rendszerének megbuktatására irányuló katonai akció így kudarcba fulladt, s ez komoly politikai fiaskót jelentett az Egyesült Államok számára, Washington azonban nem ismerte el közvetlen részvételét a partraszállásban. Az ENSZ-ben, ahol éles hangvételű viták folytak az intervenció megítéléséről, az Egyesült Államok hivatalos álláspontját Adlai E. Stevenson amerikai demokrata politikus képviselte, akit már John F. Kennedy amerikai elnök nevezett ki ENSZ-nagykövetnek. Az ENSZ-ben a Szovjetunió hivatalos álláspontját Valerian Zorin ENSZ-nagykövet közvetítette, aki április 18-án ismertette a világszervezetben Nyikita Szergejevics Hruscsov szovjet pártfőtitkár Kennedy elnöknek küldött levelét, amelyet a szovjet külügyminisztérium adott át előzetesen a moszkvai amerikai nagykövetségnek, s amelyet a moszkvai amerikai nagykövetség továbbított a State Departmentnek. A dokumentumokat utánközli Horváth Dávid, Stevenson beszédének forrása: Commager, Henry Steele (szerk.): Documents of American History. Volume II. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Prentice Hall. 1973. 663–666. old.; Hruscsov levelének forrása: U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of The United States, 1961–1963, Volume X, Cuba, 1961–1962, közzéteszi: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/baypig7.htm.

Adlai Stevenson amerikai ENSZ-nagykövet a partraszállásról

1961. április 17 –20.

The Bay of Pigs: Ambassador Stevenson’s Statements

April 17, 1961

Statement of April 17

Let me make it clear that we do not regard the Cuban problem as a problem between Cuba and theUnited States. The challenge is not to the United Statesbut to the hemisphere and its duly constituted body, the Organization of American States. The Castro regime has betrayed the Cuban revolution. It is now collaborating in organized attempts by means of propaganda, agitation, and subversion to bring about the overthrow of existing governments by force and replace them with regimes subservient to an extra-continental power. These events help to explain why the Cuban government continues to bypass the Organization of American States, even if they do not explain why Cuba, which is thus in open violation of its obligations under inter-American treaties and agreements, continues to charge the United States with violations of these same obligations.

Soon after the Castro government assumed power, it launched a program looking to the export of its system to other countries of the hemisphere, particularly in the Caribbeanarea. The intervention of Cuban diplomatic personnel in the internal affairs of other nations of the hemisphere has become flagrant. Cuban diplomatic and consular establishments are used as distribution points for propaganda material calling on the peoples ofLatin America to followCuba’s example. Even Cuban diplomatic pouches destined for various Latin-American countries have been found to contain inflammatory and subversive propaganda directed against friendly governments.

In public support of these activities Prime Minister Castro, President Dorticós, Dr. Roa himself, and many other high-ranking members of the revolutionary government have openly stated that “the peoples of Latin Americashould follow Cuba’s example.” They have frankly declared that the Cuban system is for export. . .

Statements of Soviet Russian and Chinese Communist leaders indicate that, by Dr. Castro’s own actions, the Cuban revolution has become an instrument of the foreign policies of these extracontinental powers. The increasingly intimate relationship betweenCubaand the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and other countries associated with them, in conjunction with the huge shipments of arms, munitions, and other equipment from the Sino-Soviet bloc, must therefore be matters of deep concern to independent governments everywhere.

The Castro regime has mercilessly destroyed the hope of freedom the Cuban people had briefly glimpsed at the beginning of 1959.Cubahas never witnessed such political persecution as exists today. The arrests, the prisons bulging with political prisoners, and the firing squads testify to this. Since the Castro regime came to power, more than 600 persons have been executed, with a shocking disregard of the standards of due process of law and fair trial generally accepted and practiced in the civilized community of nations. The government has even threatened to replace its slogan for this year–”the year of education” – with a new slogan –”the year of the execution wall”.

There is no democratic participation of the Cuban people in their determination of their destiny. Staged rallies, at which small percentages of the population are harangued and asked to express approval of policies by shouts or show of hands, represent the procedure of a totalitarian demagogue and not free and democratic expression of opinion through the secret ballot.

The Cuban farm worker who was promised his own plot of land finds that he is an employee of the state working on collective or state-run farms. The independent labor movement, once one of the strongest in the hemisphere, is today in chains. Freely elected Cuban labor leaders, who as late as the end of 1960 protested the destruction of workers’ rights, were imprisoned for their pains, or took asylum in foreign embassies, or fled the country to escape imprisonment.

When in addition the people are confronted, despite aid from the Sino-Soviet bloc, with a drastic reduction in their standard of living, it is not surprising opposition to their present master grows. .

The problem created in the Western Hemisphere by the Cuban revolution is not one of revolution… The problem is that every effort is being made to use Cuba as a base to force totalitarian ideology into other parts of the Americas .

The Cuban government has disparaged the plans of the American states to pool their resources to accelerate social and economic development in the Americas . At the Bogotameeting of the Committee of 21 inSeptember, 1960, the Cuban delegation missed few opportunities to insult the representatives of other American states and to play an obstructionist role. They refused to sign the Act of Bogota and thereby to take part in the hemisphere-wide co-operative effort of social reform to accompany programs of economic development. The Cuban official reaction to President Kennedy’sAlliancefor Progress program for the Americaswas in a similar vein. In a speech on March 12, 1961, Dr. Castro denounced the program, portraying it as a program of “alms” using “usurious dollars” to buy the economic independence and national dignity of the countries which participate in the program.

Dr. Castro has carefully and purposefully destroyed the great hope the hemisphere invested in him when he came to power two years ago. No one in his senses could have expected to embark on such a course as this with impunity. No sane man would suppose that he could speak Dr. Castro’s words, proclaim his aggressive intentions, carry out his policies of intervention and subversion–and at the same time retain the friendship, the respect, and the confidence of Cuba’s sister republics in the Americas. He sowed the wind and reaps the whirlwind.

It is not the United Stateswhich is the cause of Dr. Castro’s trouble: It is Dr. Castro himself. It is not Washington which has turned so many thousands of his fellow countrymen against his regime–men who fought beside him in the Cuban hills, men who risked their lives for him in the underground movements in Cuban cities, men who lined Cuban streets to hail him as the liberator from tyranny, men who occupied the most prominent places in the first government of the Cuban revolution. It is these men who constitute the threat–if threat there is–to Dr. Castro’s hope of consolidating his power and intensifying his tyranny.

The problem which the United Statesconfronts today is our attitude toward such men as these. Three years ago many American citizens looked with sympathy on the cause espoused by Castro and offered hospitality to his followers in their battle against the tyranny of Batista. We cannot expect Americans today to look with less sympathy on those Cubans who, out of love for their country and for liberty, now struggle against the tyranny of Castro.

If the Castro regime has hostility to fear, it is the hostility of Cubans, not of Americans. If today Castro’s militia are hunting down guerrillas in the hills where Castro himself once fought, they are hunting down Cubans, not Americans. If the Castro regime is overthrown, it will be overthrown by Cubans, not by Americans.

I do not see that it is the obligation of the United Statesto protect Dr. Castro from the consequences of his treason to the promises of the Cuban revolution, to the hopes of the Cuban people, and to the Democratic aspirations of the Western Hemisphere. .

Our only hope is that the Cuban tragedy may awaken the people and governments of the Americasto a profound resolve–a resolve to concert every resource and energy to advance the cause of economic growth and social progress throughout the hemisphere, but to do so under conditions of human freedom and political democracy. This cause represents the real revolution of the Americas . To this struggle to expand freedom and abundance and education and culture for all the citizens of the New Worldthefree states of the hemisphere summon all the peoples in nations where freedom and independence are in temporary eclipse. We confidently expect that Cuba will be restored to the American community and will take a leading role to win social reform and economic opportunity, human dignity and democratic government, not just for the people of Cubabut for all the people of the hemisphere.

Statement of April 18

The current uprising in Cuba is the product of the progressively more violent opposition of the Cuban people to the policies and practices of this regime. Let us not forget that there have been hundreds of freedom fighters in the mountains of central Cuba for almost a year; that during the last six months skirmishes with the Castro police, attacks upon individual members of his armed forces, nightly acts of sabotage by the revolutionaries, have been increasing in number and intensity. Protest demonstrations have taken place by workers whose trade-union rights have been betrayed, by Catholics whose freedom of expression and worship has been circumscribed, by professional men whose right to free association has been violated. The response of the Castro regime has been repression, arrests without warrant, trial without constitutional guarantees, imprisonment without term and without mercy, and, finally, the execution wall.

Let me be absolutely clear: that the present events are the uprising of the Cuban people against an oppressive regime which has never given them the opportunity in peace and by democratic process to approve or to reject the domestic and foreign policies which it has followed.

For our part, our attitude is clear. Many Americans looked with sympathy, as I have said, on the cause espoused by Dr. Castro when he came to power. They look with the same sympathy on the men who today seek to bring freedom and justice to Cuba–not for foreign monopolies, not for the economic or political interests of theUnited States or any foreign power, but for Cuba and for the Cuban people.

It is hostility of Cubans, not Americans, that Dr. Castro has to fear. It is not our obligation to protect him from the consequences of his treason to the revolution, to the hopes of the Cuban people, and to the democratic aspirations of the hemisphere.

TheUnited States sincerely hopes that any difficulties which we or other American countries may have with Cuba will be settled peacefully. We have committed no aggression againstCuba. We have no aggressive purposes against Cuba. We intend no military intervention in Cuba. We seek to see a restoration of the friendly relations which once prevailed between Cuba and theUnited States. We hope that the Cuban people will settle their own problems in their own interests and in a manner which will assure social justice, true independence, and political liberty to the Cuban people.

Statement of April 20

I have some final words that I should like to say in this debate. I am grateful to those of my colleagues who have expressed respect for my country and for the honesty of its spokesmen here and inWashington .

First let me say that we don’t deny that the exiles from Cuba have received the sympathy of many people inside and outside the United States–even as Dr. Castro had the sympathy of many in the United States, Mexico , and elsewhere. But the extent to which so many speakers have deliberately confused this with intervention and aggression by the United States Government has exceeded all bounds of fact or fancy.

Obviously the incessant repetition of such charges as though they had been proved reveals a greater anxiety to mislead and to corrupt world opinion than to keep the discussion on the tracks.

I have heard a torrent–a deluge–of ugly words from Communist speakers here accusing the United Statesof aggression and invasion against Cuba. I will resist the temptation to invite attention to the record of aggression of the countries represented by some of those speakers–or to inquire as to which country has really intervened in Cuba, which country has perverted the Cuban revolution, and why these same speakers are so emotional about the revolt of the Cuban refugees against the new tyranny in Cuba and the new imperialism in the world.

Let me just ask–if this was a United Statesmilitary operation, do you think it would succeed or fail? How long do you think Cuba could resist the military power of the United States? Perhaps the best evidence of the falsity of the shrill charges of American aggression in Cuba is the melancholy fact that this blow for freedom has not yet succeeded. And if theUnited States had been in charge I submit that fighting would hardly have broken out on the day debate was to start in this committee.

The Cuban people have not spoken.

Their yearning to be free of Castro’s executions, of his betrayal of the revolution, of his controlled press, and of his yoke and rule by mailed fist has not been extinguished. The more than 100,000 refugees from his tyranny are undeniable proof of the historic aspirations of the Cuban people for freedom. The Cubans will continue to look forward to the day when they can determine their own future by democratic processes and through free institutions.

And what are the lessons to be learned? For those Cuban patriots who gave their lives, the lesson is one of tragic finality. But what of those who live on and will shape the future? The events of the last few days are indelible reminders to all of us in the Western Hemisphere. The penetration of force from outside our hemisphere, dominating a puppet government and providing it with arms, tanks, and fighter aircraft, is already dangerously strong and deep. It is now demonstrably stronger, deeper, and more dangerous to all of us who value freedom than most Americans–and most of our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere–have been willing to think.

If there is hope in the events of the last few days it is that it will awaken all of us in the Americasto a renewed determination to mobilize every resource and energy to advance the cause of economic growth and social progress throughout the hemisphere– to foster conditions of freedom and political democracy. They summon all of us to expand freedom and abundance with education of all peoples. If we dedicate ourselves with renewed resolve to bringing greater social reform, greater economic opportunity, greater human dignity, the sacrifices of the last few days will not have been in vain... 

_{Hruscsov levele Kennedynek a Disznó-öbölbeli intervenció kapcsán}

Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State

April 18, 1961, Moscow 

Received at8:53 a.m. The Embassy also reported that a demonstration against U.S. involvement in Cuba began outside the Embassy at 2:35 p.m. local time. The Soviet Government released the text of the letter to the press at the same time that it was presented to the Embassy in Moscow. Ambassador Zorin read the text of Khrushchev's letter during debate in the First Committee on April 18.

Following letter to President Kennedy from Khrushchev handed me by Acting Foreign Minister Semenov at 12:15 today. Begin text:

Mr. President, I send you this message in an hour of alarm, fraught with danger for the peace of the whole world. Armed aggression has begun againstCuba. It is a secret to no one that the armed bands invading this country were trained, equipped and armed in the United States of America. The planes which are bombing Cuban cities belong to the United States of America, the bombs they are dropping are being supplied by the American Government.

All of this evokes here in the Soviet Unionan understandable feeling of indignation on the part of the Soviet Government and the Soviet people.

Only recently, in exchanging opinions through our respective representatives, we talked with you about the mutual desire of both sides to put forward joint efforts directed toward improving relations between our countries and eliminating the danger of war. Your statement a few days ago that the USA would not participate in military activities against Cuba created the impression that the top leaders of the United States were taking into account the consequences for general peace and for the USA itself which aggression against Cuba could have. How can what is being done by the United States in reality be understood, when an attack on Cubahas now become a fact?

It is still not late to avoid the irreparable. The Government of the USA still has the possibility of not allowing the flame of war ignited by interventions in Cuba to grow into an incomparable conflagration. I approach you, Mr. President, with an urgent call to put an end to aggression against the Republic of Cuba. Military armament and the world political situation are such at this time that any so-called „little war” can touch off a chain reaction in all parts of the globe.

As far as theSoviet Unionis concerned, there should be no mistake about our position: We will render the Cuban people and their government all necessary help to repel armed attack onCuba. We are sincerely interested in a relaxation of international tension, but if others proceed toward sharpening, we will answer them in full measure. And in general it is hardly possible so to conduct matters that the situation is settled in one area and conflagration extinguished, while a new conflagration is ignited in another area.

I hope that the Government of the USAwill consider our views dictated by the sole concern not to allow steps which could lead the world to military catastrophe. End text.