Cold War Context for the Killings of Four US Political Leaders / By W. T. Whitney Jr.

_{^{Image Source: Orbis Books}}

_{South Paris, Maine}

The imperialist U.S. state stops at nothing. Anything goes. Really? After victory in World War II and with U.S. manufacturing in high gear, the United States in the 1960s dominated world finances, trade, and politics. One dark cloud was the Soviet Union. Its industrialization had greatly expanded before the War and afterwards was recovering. The USSR was mentoring nations emerging from colonization.

Other challenges were: a maturing Chinese Revolution, socialist revolution in neighboring Cuba, and the Soviet Union’s and China’s nuclear capabilities. Economic bounty at home was no panacea for the country’s rampant racial and social inequalities. War was looming in Vietnam.

Resistance was spreading: California’s Free Speech Movement; Black people’s fight for political participation and constitutional guarantees, women’s demands for equality, rejection of U.S war in Vietnam, and alternative lifestyles.

Four high-profile political figures were murdered: President John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy. Agents of the U.S. government were responsible. Individually or together, the victims had denounced war in Vietnam, possession and potential use of nuclear weapons, racial and economic oppression, and colonialism.

James Douglass reports on the assassinations. His JFK and the Unspeakable, first appearing in 2008, tells of the murder of President Kennedy. Douglass’s new book, Martyrs to the Unspeakable (Orbis Press), explores the killings of the other three leaders.

He states at the outset that, “Because they asked why, turned to create a better world, and were willing to die for it, they were shot down …They were targeted to keep us from realizing our movement for a more just and peaceful world.” Douglass regards them as witnesses and martyrs. They knew they would die.

He continues: “The method of those four movement-shattering assassinations of the sixties had its root in the criminal conduct of their nation in World War II. The leveling of cities by U.S. fire-bombings in Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo, by nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki …devastated the hope of humanity for a better world … As leaders for change, [they] had to be stopped to prevent a rising countermovement from spreading across the world, ending the Cold War and initiating a new era of justice and peace. U.S. security agencies thought they had no choice.”

He writes that the nuclear attack in 1945, “turned me toward Mohandas Gandhi, who had said the Bomb (sic) had in fact continued the war in a more terrible form under the cloak of peace.” Douglass takes Gandhi’s “experiment with truth” as his model for non-violent political struggle. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. Douglass published Gandhi and the Unspeakable: his Final Experiment with Truth” (Orbis) In 2012.

Catholic Workers Movement founder Dorothy Day spoke at the college Douglass was attending. Her influence inspired his lifelong dedication to opposing war and nuclear weapons. He and his wife Shelley in 1993 founded a Catholic Worker hospitality house in Birmingham, Alabama. They live and work there still.

In his crowded, detail-filled new book, Douglass documents the doings and thinking of victims and their associates, U.S. intelligence and security operatives, Soviet officials, and many others. He gained information from his subjects’ speeches and writings, their colleagues’ recollections, news reports, commentary from biographers and observers, interviews he conducted, and declassified government documents, notably from the FBI.

The book has three sections: “The Witness,” “The Way,” and “The Why.” The first two of them offer historical segments on various episodes in his subjects’ lives. The pace quickens as their deaths draw near. He records the doings of government agents plus aspects of the wider political and international context. His third section deals with the convergence of Malcolm X and MLK – so alarming to government officials – and to the interaction among JFK, RFK, and Soviet officials that ended the October (1962) Missile Crisis.

Bits of each victim’s history crop up in all three sections. Repetitions helped this writer absorb and understand a complicated narrative extending across time and space. The book’s voluminous footnotes are essential reading.

Appearing below are summaries of key narratives in the book that are revealing as to how and why the three political leaders died. The aim is to highlight important themes and illustrate the kind of information appearing in the book.

Malcolm X at home and abroad

Fidel Castro came to New York in September 1960 for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Malcolm X arranged for Castro and his party to transfer from the Shelburne Hotel downtown to the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. The first hotel charged excessively for “damages” and the State Department was restricting the Cubans’ movements.

Much to the delight of Harlem residents, Malcolm was soon conferring amiably with Castro at the Hotel Theresa. Some of the U.S. government’s most disliked foreign leaders were visiting Castro at the hotel, among them: Premier Khrushchev of the USSR, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Eisenhower government, whose agents were monitoring Castro, had been upstaged, and Malcolm X would pay.

Malcolm in 1964 made a pilgrimage to Mecca, which is obligatory for Muslims. At the time, he was shifting his focus from fighting U.S. racial oppression to advocacy for brotherhood among all peoples and for human rights for all. Having explained his ideas of African-American and African unity to the Algerian ambassador in Ghana, he heard the official say, “Brother Malcolm, that sort of leaves me out. I am a Muslim brother and a revolutionary, but I am not black.” Malcolm X was learning.

Touring Africa that year, always tracked by the CIA, he conferred with leaders of the newly independent nations. In July at an African Unity Summit in Cairo, Malcolm presented and gained approval for a proposal from his newly formed Organization of African-American Unity. It asked African nations to introduce a petition to the United Nations seeking judgment on human rights violations by the U.S. government.

Martin Luther King gets his revolutionary bearings

The FBI surveilled King and tapped his phone. The agency discovered embarrassing incidents calculated to provoke him to suicide. J. Edger Hoover learned that a member of the Communist Party USA was King’s most important outside advisor and that a current member was administering King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). U.S. officials, President Kennedy included, demanded that King dismiss the individuals. He took no action.

Speaking to the SCLC a month after his watershed Riverside Church address on April 4, 1967, King stated – as quoted by Douglass – that, “I think it is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights … Now, when we see that there must be a radical redistribution of economic and political power, then we see that …we have been in a reform movement … After Selma and the Voting Rights Bill, we moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolution.”

Malcolm X, having joined the protest in Selma and now taking his human rights and brotherhood campaigns overseas, was moving closer to MLK, and the latter was reciprocating. Douglass asserts that, “Together Malcolm and Martin could lead the world to a human rights revolution … [They were] “revolutionary prophets.” The prospect of their alliance was anathema to the U.S. government.

Scapegoats

Government functionaries arranged for the killings of three of these four high-profile victims. In Malcolm’s case, they farmed out the job. Malcolm X, a minister at a mosque associated with the Nation of Islam (NOI), had criticized NOI’s leadership. The FBI, with New York Police Department assistance, aggravated the growing hostility through telephone surveillance, paid informers, and faked, accusatory letters to the NOI. Malcolm was eventually forced out. NOI assassins killed him in February 1965.

In the three other instances, the CIA and/or the FBI found and prepared substitute defendants, so-called patsies. Douglass documented the pains taken by the U.S. government to assure that James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, and Lee Harvey Oswald would be accepted as real perpetrators. That documentation by Douglass and others has contributed mightily to establishing the truth about the assassinations. Douglass’s findings on Oswald appear in his JFK book.

“Cold War agencies” had identified the imprisoned James Earl Ray’s potential as a patsy. They enabled his escape, equipped him with documents and a new identity, installed him across the street from the motel where MLK would be assassinated, placed a dysfunctional rifle close by, and arranged for the Memphis police to be far away. After the murder, in 1968, they delivered Ray to Montreal, organized his travel to Europe and finally to London, so he could be arrested.

Much information came to light in the assassination conspiracy trial that in 1999 delivered a verdict favoring the King family’s wrongful death law suit. Douglass, who attended the trial throughout, regards lawyer William Pepper, the family’s representative at the trial, as an emblematic witness to the truth.

Douglass later interviewed Glenda Grabow, witness at the trial. She had been a friend of “Raul,” who guided Ray in his wanderings in the United States and implemented arrangements in Memphis for King’s murder. She told the author about Raul’s criminal connections and of Raul’s confession to her of his role in the killing of King and of his part in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Palestinian refugee Sirhan Sirhan took the fall for the killer of Senator Robert Kennedy. Douglass indicates U.S. agents recruited Sirhan, subjected him to mind-control drugs, and prepared him both to adopt a hypnotic state on demand and to shoot while hypnotized. He was present in a Los Angeles hotel on June 5, 1968 as RFK celebrated his victory as a presidential candidate in California’s Democratic primary.

Witnesses cited by Douglass indicated Sirhan had been placed a few feet in front of Kennedy and that his pistol shots went astray and hit bystanders. Douglass regards that information as consistent with the opinion of psychologists who interviewed the imprisoned Sirhan after his trial. They indicated Sirhan had been hypnotized and that his inability to remember the shooting afterwards suggests exactly that.

Douglass regards as crucially important the pathologist’s report saying that the fatal bullet actually came from a gun fired only inches behind Kennedy’s head.

The CIA team, through trickery, had compromised defense attorney Grant Cooper’s integrity. As a result, Cooper cooperated with the prosecutors in order that he not be prosecuted himself. That was why, according to Douglass, that Cooper agreed not to present the full pathology report to the jury.

Douglass points also to the bullying of a witness by a former CIA operative as he conducted a polygraph interview. The witness ended up backing away from earlier testimony to the district attorney that she had seen the presumed shooter, the real one, arriving at the hotel. Her testimony was never made available to the defense.

RFK evolves

RFK devoted his inaugural Senate speech in 1965 to a call for elimination of nuclear weapons. Sympathetic to anti-colonialism, he believed independence forces would overcome U.S. forces in Vietnam just as African independence forces had neutralized the military power of French colonialism. As reported by Douglass, Daniel Ellsberg asked RFK why President Kennedy opposed “American ground combat in Vietnam … What made him so smart?” RFK replied that, “Because we there, in 1951. We saw what was happening to the French. We saw it.” The brothers had visited Indochina that year.

NAACP lawyer Marian Wright in 1967 brought RFK to the Mississippi Delta where, first-hand, he saw the suffering of poor Black children. Wright would soon convey RFK’s message to Martin King that poor whites and Blacks together must bring their struggles to Washington and stay. Accordingly, King’s Poor People’s Campaign was to have gathered in DC shortly after King’s assassination on April 4, 1968.

Douglass explains that in the last year of his life, RFK “deepened in his resolution to do all he could for his people, ‘poor people coming to stay’ in Washington, coming from the urban ghetto and the Indian reservations and Appalachian coal mines.” He describes RFK as “a peace president need[ing] the people’s movement, marching ahead of the government for justice and peace, all the way. Where the people lead, as they were doing through Martin King and Malcolm X, a peace president … will have the strength to follow.”

In the end

The present volume and Douglass’s earlier book on JFK establish U.S. government responsibility for the deaths of four U.S. leaders who were oriented to peace and human equality. His documentation of U.S. agencies’ careful preparations for the assassinations makes the case. The book teaches that the U.S. government, when pushed, stops at nothing in pursuit of imperialist purposes and repression of progressive political causes. That message has revolutionary implications.

Here’s why. Left-leaning activists have a choice. They either compromise and perhaps gain amelioration of problems or else they go all out for fundamental change, thus inviting horrific consequences. But these are not inevitable. The outcome turns on who ends up with political power.

Douglass establishes that one or more of the murdered leaders had opted for peace, no nuclear weapons, human equality, and a world without oppression. These are exactly the causes that, to reach fruition, would be taken up by masses of people exerting political force. In these circumstances, the aforementioned activists would be gaining a measure of protection. They might even win.

Having accumulated and correlated information on a massive scale, Douglass offers a report that is very bad news, but not entirely. He writes that “awakening to reality – from our madness of empires, assassination, climate change and nuclear war – can offer hope to us all.” The drift of his message goes toward those masses of people working their way.

The aspirations of the doomed political leaders he writes about offer the promise of one or another kind of revolutionary change. Telling this story in the language of facts and historical inquiry amply qualifies Douglass as a practitioner of revolutionary journalism, a trade recently on display courtesy of George Burchett, son of “rebel journalist” Wilfred Burchett.

Lastly, former theology professor Douglass invokes moral values. He states that “initiating a nuclear war …[is] the darkest evil one can imagine.” He cites Martin King’s mention of both “life proceeding along the arc of the moral universe” and “a revolution of values.”

Ideas of right and wrong most certainly draw people into political action. They may sustain activists later on, as they gain experience and awareness of new realties, but not always. A call-out that something is wrong comes first – for Douglass now and for abolitionist editor William Lloyd Garrison long ago.

Their shared intensity of purpose manifests in Garrison’s call-out in the first issue of his Liberator magazine (1831): “I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” Douglass’s approach to his work and beliefs mirrors that of Garrison, without the dramatic flourish.

Loose ends remain. Douglass inserts the word “unspeakable” in the titles of his books. He uses it in the sense given to the word by Thomas Merton – Trappist monk, writer, and implacable critic of U.S. wars. For Merton, unspeakable “is the void that contradicts everything that is said even before the words are said; the void … [that is] the hollowness of the abyss.” In his text, Douglass uses the term sparingly with no elaboration as to its meaning.

Douglass concludes with reference to Palestine and “an unspeakable life circling back to its beginning – Count Folke Bernadotte.” His book starts with a detailed look at President Kennedy’s strenuous but failed efforts to prevent Israel from developing nuclear weapons.

It ends with a description of Bernadotte’s work and fate as United Nations mediator for Palestine in 1948. He worked to place Jerusalem under UN protection, establish boundaries, protect Palestinian refugees, and ensure their “right to return home” – and was assassinated. The shooter later on became the “closest friend” of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founder and first prime minister.

James W. Douglass, Martyrs to the Unspeakable: The Assassinations of JFK, Martin, Malcolm, and RFK, (Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY, 2025) ISBN 9781626986268, Pp 590, http://www.orbisbooks.com

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a retired pediatrician and political journalist living in Maine.

Promise and contradictions emerge from celebration of Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine / By W. T. Whitney Jr

_{^{Photo credit: Prensa Latina}}

_{South Paris, Maine}

The Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM for its Spanish language initials) is a masterpiece of Cuba’s remarkable healthcare system. A conference of ELAM graduates took place in Havana from November 11 to November 15; two sets of them attended. The gathering marked the 25^th anniversary of ELAM’s founding in 1999.

What happened and what was said reflect Cuba’s healthcare achievements and ELAM’s special contribution. A focus on ELAM demonstrates for us the paradox, cruelty, and injustice of U.S. aggression against a people capable of producing such an unprecedented achievement as ELAM.

To be aware that ELAM exists and that its creation falls within the range of human capacity is to be reassured that, in fact, possibilities do exist other than U.S. warmaking, militarization, and complicity in anti-Palestine genocide.

ELAM evolved out of Cuba’s response in 1999 to the ravages of Hurricanes George and Mitch in the Caribbean area and in parts of Central America. Cuban physicians carrying out rescue missions discovered that local healthcare workers were overwhelmed by the catastrophe. Within weeks, Cuba’s political leaders opted to prepare young people to be physicians in their own countries and be ready for future disasters and much more

Soon prospective medical students were heading to ELAM from hurricane-affected regions. Later they came from throughout Latin America, and eventually from Africa and farther afield, including from the United States. They were motivated by idealism – enrollees dedicate themselves to serving the underserved – and the fact that no personal outlay is required.

ELAM has now prepared 31,180 physicians for service in 120 countries. Some 1800 medical students from many countries are presently studying there. ELAM provides the first two years of pre-clinical courses at a converted naval base immediately to the west of Havana. Clinical training over the next four years takes place at teaching hospitals throughout Cuba.

On hand in Havana 25 years after ELAM’s initiation were more than 300 ELAM graduates and students plus 250 guests, physicians and students, from 30 countries. The occasion combined the 1^st International Congress of ELAM graduates and the 2^nd International Assembly of the International Medical Society of Graduates of ELAM (SMI-ELAM).

Organizers assigned the theme “Guardians of life, creators of a better world.” They projected the assembly as “a space for scientific interchange … and a concrete step toward creation of an international medical and scientific organization whose members [are] ELAM graduates.”

The gathering featured plenary sessions, round tables, panels, and presentations by clinical and research specialists. These took place in Havana’s teaching hospitals and Conventions Center. Topics were: primary health care, medical care during emergencies and natural disasters, postgraduate medical training, and higher education in the medical sciences. Presenters linked medical education, social impact, and international solidarity. Experts from abroad and from international organizations were participating.

Welcoming the delegates, ELAM’s rector Yoandra Muro insisted that, “Commander Fidel is here, standing up, fighting with the example he instilled in his children, the graduates of this project of love.” Here, “we have a space for [ELAM] graduates to continue strengthening our kind of work and projecting training programs for the guardians of the present and future.” She identified graduates as “invincible standard-bearers in the field of health, who from their quality preparation are steeped in the work of solidarity.”

Luther Castillo Harry, currently minister of science, technology, and innovation in the Honduran government, graduated from ELAM in 2007. He declared at the conference that, “We are looking at the possibility of building the greatest scientific organization in the world … Each one of us has to be an ambassador of the Cuban Revolution.” And, “We will only gain the possible, through struggle against the impossible.”

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel sent a message welcoming graduates back to their “second homeland.” He indicated he would not attend the sessions because of duties with post-hurricane recovery efforts. Díaz-Canel cited Fidel Castro’s “deep conviction that a better world is possible if we fight tirelessly for that ideal.” He speculated on “Fidel’s happiness had he been able to see you become guardians of the life and health of your people.”

Presiding over a plenary session, public health minister José Ángel Portal Miranda discussed healthcare in Cuba. The report has him outlining a system based on primary care that involves 69 medical specialties and three levels of care. Cuba’s medical network, he explained, consists of 451 polyclinics, 11,315 community health centers, 149 hospitals, and a work force of 400,000 people. There are eight physicians serving each cohort of 1000 Cubans, 80,000 in all. Maternity homes and homes for elders are part of the system.

The minister indicated that 40 different faculties or their affiliates are responsible for training physicians; medical sciences are taught in 13 universities. He identified “the development of science and technology as the fundamental pillar of the health system.” Presently 2,767 research projects and 82 clinical trials are underway.

Portal highlighted Cuba’s international medical solidarity, mentioning the Comprehensive Health Program mediated through international missions, the Barrio Adentro program for Venezuela, Operation Miracle (for eye care), and the Henry Reeve Brigades. He cited some 600,000 Cuban health workers having cared for people in more than 160 countries over many years.

Concluding his remarks, he stated that, “Out of ELAM have emerged and will emerge galenos who will save humanity from the barbarism. Or, as leader of the Revolution Fidel Castro said – ‘Doctors, not bombs!’” (Claudius Galen was a Greek physician and researcher in the classical era. Spanish speakers often refer to physicians as “galenos.”)

Here is Castro speaking in Buenos Aires in 2003:

“Our country does not drop bombs on other peoples, nor does it send thousands of planes to bomb cities; Our country has no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. The tens of thousands of scientists and doctors in our country have been educated in the idea of saving lives. It would be absolutely contradictory to their conception to put a scientist or a doctor to produce substances, bacteria or viruses capable of killing other human beings.”

_{W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.}

How the Knowledge Economy and Science Bolster Cuba’s Socialist Revolution / By W. T. Whitney

_{^{via Radio Havana Cuba}}

_{South Paris, Maine}

Cuba and Cuban science gained acclaim worldwide for producing their own very effective Covid-19 vaccines. The achievement stood out among nations of the Global South. The feat reflects Cuba’s development over decades of a formidable scientific establishment engaged in the development and marketing of biologic products oriented to healthcare mostly, and food production too.

The planning processes and strategizing involved were unique, and so too the resulting organizational forms. These special characteristics relate directly to Cuba’s version of socialism.

In a speech on January 15, 1960, a year after the Revolution came to power, Fidel Castro remarked that, “The future of Cuba will necessarily be a future of men (sic) of science.” The landscape would change dramatically.

The Cuban Academy of Sciences was reactivated in 1962. In succession came: the National Center for Scientific Research (1965), the Center for Biological Research (1982); the Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (1986) with its 38 scientific institutions, the Immunoassay Center (1987), the vaccine-manufacturing Finlay Institute (1991), the National Center for Biopreparations (1992), and the Center for Molecular Immunology (1994).

The “Scientific Pole,” formed in the 1980s in Western Havana, now includes over 40 research centers that employ 30,000 workers employed. Established in 2012 to facilitate commercialization, BioCubaFarma exports some 164 products from 65 centers. It operates 19 units abroad, as joint ventures or Cuba-owned entities.

Dr. Agustín Lage-Dávila, longtime head of the Center for Molecular Immunology, writes of “whole cycle institutions” that carry out research, product development, commercialization, and export, all under single management. Export income goes toward funding each institution’s activities and contributes to the national budget.

Exported products have included vaccines against meningitis B, hepatitis B, Hemophilus Influenza type B, Covid-19, lung cancer (CIMAvax-EGF), and many other infectious agents. Other products are: interferons, erythropoietin, streptokinase, Heberprot-P (used to treat diabetic foot ulcers), diagnostic test kits, and six non-vaccine treatment modalities for Covid-19.

Lage’s book on the origins, development, and upkeep of Cuba’s immense bio-scientific network was published in Cuba in 2013 and again in 2016. Monthly Review Press recently issued a translated version of the book’s second edition titled The Knowledge Economy and Socialism – Science and Society in Cuba. The various chapters represent articles that Lage, an immunologist, biochemist, cancer expert, had written for Cuban journals. An additional chapter consists of Lage’s responses to questions provoked by first edition of the book. The clarity and readability of the book’s English translation is a plus.

The book overflows with information, opinions, analyses, historical references, and optimism balanced by ample recognition of big problems. Lage explains that, after the Revolution, Cuba at once embarked upon developing human capabilities and initiating social advances. There was no waiting for available funding, as is the practice of most nations.

As a result, circumstances were in place for the building of what Lage calls a knowledge economy. It would feature the export of scientific products, these in place of the natural resources and the industrial base that Cuba lacks. Lage notes that biologic products have to be new and novel in order to sell.

Cuba’s bio-technical industries function “without sterile fragmentation …[and] within inter-institution borders … [K]nowledge is captured and incorporated into negotiable assets.” Cooperation, according to Lage, works better than competition. Elimination of institutional boundaries promotes integration of knowledge. The system favors autonomy over centralized decision-making; it features “layered” decision-making, “crosspollination,” and a shared sense of responsibility.

The contrast with capitalist modes of bio-technical production is striking, he suggests. There, funding rests on venture capitalism. Products and their value end up in private hands through patents, intellectual-property protection, and regulatory barriers. Planning is for the short-term. Scientific creation is divorced from ownership of the results.

Lage repeatedly returns to the necessity of overcoming a contradiction pointed out by Karl Marx, that of the social character of production and the private character of appropriation of both the product’s value and the means of production. He refers to the “private appropriation of accumulated science and knowledge,” and to the appropriation of people in the form of brain drain.

As a socialist country, Cuba defends social ownership of the means of production and the accumulated value of products. Socialism is a prerequisite, he suggests, for science to be propelling a nation’s economy.

Lage emphasizes the contribution of Cuban culture and notions of sovereignty in bolstering the project. Culture shows in ethical values, motivation, solidarity, and inclination toward unity. There is an “indissoluble link between sovereignty and socialism” through which “our daily tasks are part of a larger historical task.”

He adds that, “We are getting closer … to the knowledge economy …[and] approaching Marti’s ideal of ‘whole justice’ daily through every social program we successfully implement … Thus we construct not only the spiritual and material well-being of our people but also the defense of national sovereignty.”

Lage discusses the knowledge economy as it manifests at the local level, specifically in Yaguajay, near Sancti Spiritus, the municipality he represents in Cuba’s National Assembly. He cites a “municipal socioeconomic developmental strategy” that, enlisting nearby universities and research centers in “knowledge management,” has led to “qualitative changes” in healthcare, tourism development, computing, housing promotion and agriculture.

The “levers of socialism” are helpful, in particular: massive state investment in creating human capital, integration among institutions, linkages with social programs, exports connected to Cuba’s international agreements and solidarity programs, the capacity to innovate in managing institutions, and workers’ “political and social motivation.”

He recognizes risks. Time is one; “building a knowledge economy … is today’s task, not tomorrow’s.” Rich countries use “their accumulated economic advantages … to enlarge those advantages and erect new development barriers in poor countries.” He cites residual damage from the Special Period, old habits of “centralized business management,” brain drain, and pressures exerted “by the most powerful empire that has ever existed.”

As regards U.S. aggression: “They know … the potential of socialism. A country that makes its material wealth grow based on the education and spiritual wealth of its people and on the equity that derives from the social ownership of the means of production and distributive justice would be too clear evidence that the solutions to the problems facing humanity today are not on the path of capitalism nor in the subordination to the interests of the developed capitalist countries. Thus, they need to show that our system ‘does not work,’ hence the blockade.”

A cautionary note: a report from Columbia Law School in 2021, eight years after Lage’s book was first published, cites Cuban statistics showing “a drop of almost 40% in exports of chemical products and related products between 2015 and 2019 … [And] medicinal and pharmaceutical products make up around 90% of the total exports of chemical products.” It seems that income derived from bio-technology exports is down.

Agustín Lage Dávila, The Knowledge Economy and Socialism: Science and Society in Cuba, (Monthly Review Press, NY, 03/31/2024), www.monthlyreview.org, pp320, $29.00 (PB) Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68590-042-7

Mexico Leads in Opposing the Cuba Blockade and US Imperialism / by W.T. Whitney, Jr.

_{^{Photograph Source: Eneas De Troya – CC BY 2.0}}

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) visited Cuba on May 8-9. He began by highlighting regional unity as good for equal promotion of economic development for all states. AMLO addressed themes he had discussed previously when Cuban president visited Mexico City in 2021.

At that time AMLO, by virtue of Mexico serving as president pro tempore, presided over a summit meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states (CELAC). He proposed building “in the Western Hemisphere something similar to what was the economic community that gave rise to the current European Union.”

Two days later, AMLO included Diaz-Canel in a celebration of the 200^th anniversary of Mexican independence. Praising Cuba’s dignity in resisting U.S. aggression, he called for an end to the blockade.

Months later in Havana, on May 8, 2022, AMLO, speaking before Cuban leaders and others, recalled “times when the United States wanted to own the continent …. They were at their peak in annexations, deciding on independence wherever, creating new countries, freely associated states, protectorates, military bases, and … invasions.”

U.S. leaders, he declared, need to be convinced “that a new relationship among the peoples of America … is possible.” He called for “replacing the OAS with a truly autonomous organism.” CELAC presumably would be that alternative alliance. Formed in 2011, CELAC includes all Western Hemisphere nations except for the United States and Canada.

The United States in 1948 established the Organization of American States (OAS) for Cold War purposes. When the OAS expelled Cuba in 1962, only Mexico’s government opposed that action and later Mexico was one of two nations rejecting an OAS demand to break off diplomatic relations with Cuba.

AMLO predicted that “by 2051, China will exert domination over 64.8% of the world market and the United States only 25%, or even 10%.” He suggested that, “Washington, finding this unacceptable,” would be tempted “to resolve that disparity through force.”

AMLO rejected “growing competition and disunity that will inevitably lead to decline in all the Americas.” He called for “Integration with respect to sovereignties and forms of government and effective application of a treaty of economic-commercial development suiting everybody.” The “first step” would be for the United States “to lift its blockade of this sister nation.”

AMLO’s visit prompted agreements on practicalities. The two presidents determined that Cuba would supply Mexico with medications and vaccines – particularly Cuba’s anti-Covid-19 Abdala vaccine for children. Mexico’s government will send almost 200 Mexican youths to Cuba to study medicine; 500 Cuban physicians will go to Mexico to work in underserved areas. The two presidents signed a general agreement providing for expanded cooperation in other areas.

Before arriving in Cuba, AMLO had visited Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Belize. Along the way he reportedly complained that, “The United States may have awarded $40 billion in aid to Ukraine but doesn’t fulfill its promise of years ago of helping out Central America.”

The two presidents’ encounter in Havana raises the question of a long-term Mexican role in mobilizing collective resistance to U.S. domination and the U.S. blockade of Cuba. Mexico is well-positioned to lead that effort, what with strong economic and commercial connections with the United States. The United States, leaning on Mexico as an economic partner, may well be receptive to certain demands.

According to the White House-based Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, “Mexico is currently our largest goods trading partner with $614.5 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2019.”

Beyond that, and in relation to Cuba, Mexico has its own revolutionary tradition and longstanding ties with Cuba. She is well-placed to lead a strong international campaign to undo the U.S. blockade.

In his major speech, AMLO cited support from Mexico in Cuba’s first War for Independence. He mentioned Cubans’ collaboration with Mexico’s much-admired president Benito Juárez and pointed out that Mexico in1956 hosted Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro as they prepared for their uprising against Batista. AMLO cited former Mexican President ,’s solidarity visit to Cuba in 1961 after the CIA -organized Bay of Pigs invasion. In token of cultural ties between the two peoples, Mexico was the guest of honor at Havana’s recently concluded International Book Fair.

José Martí warrants special attention. In exile, Martí lived, taught and wrote in Mexico City from 1875 to 1875. Afterwards he stayed connected with Mexican friends. Martí would later write admiringly about the liberal reforms of Indian-descended president Juarez, whom he regarded as the “impenetrable guardian of America.”

That “America” would be “Our America,” which became the title of a Martí essay with deep meaning for unity and for separation from the United States. “Our America” proclaimed that the culture and history of lands south of the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) originated autonomously, quite apart from European and U.S. influences. The essay appeared first in January 1891, in two journals simultaneously. One was El Partido Liberal, published in Mexico, the other being a New York periodical.

Unity among Latin American and Caribbean nations appears to be precarious as the U.S. government prepares to host the 9^th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, on June 6-10. The Summit is an offshoot of the OAS which, according to its website, “serves as the technical secretariat of the Summits process.”

The United States has indicated that the leftist governments of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua won’t be receiving invitations. AMLO, speaking in Havana, reiterated his objection and once more stated that if nations are left out, he will not attend. Nor will the presidents of Bolivia and Honduras, Luis Arce and Xiomara Castro, respectively.

The presidents of several Caribbean nations will also be staying away. They point to the hypocrisy of U.S.-appointed Venezuelan president Juan Guaidó being invited, but not Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel. Unhappy with U.S. advice on transparency of elections and Russia-Brazil relations, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro will not attend.

The conclusion here is that the old system of regional alliances is unstable and that the timing may be right for renewed resistance to U.S domination and the blockade. Now would be the occasion for U.S. anti-imperialists and blockade opponents to align their strategizing and efforts with actions, trends, and flux in Latin America and the Caribbean. And, most certainly, they would be paying attention to actions and policies of Mexico’s government.

Martí had often corresponded with his Mexican friend Manuel Mercado. His letter of May 18, 1895, the day before he died in battle, stated that, “The Cuban war … has come to America in time to prevent Cuba’s annexation to the United States. … And Mexico, will it not find a wise, effective and immediate way of helping, in due time, its own defender?”

_{Counterpunch, May 19, 2022, https://www.counterpunch.org/}