At that moment the M-26 unit closest to Havana, a column at Santa Clara under Argentine commandante Ernesto “Che” Guevara, was 150 miles away. Che slept atop the hood of his jeep. He got the news seven hours after Batista fled. Guevara immediately ordered a road march. His force arrived in Havana the next morning and drove directly to the La Cabana fortress, whose garrison of 15,000 men dwarfed Che’s small M-26 column.

  The M-26 commandante walked up to La Cabana’s iron drawbridge. There he shouted, “I am the Che, Guevara. I want to talk to your chief.”

  A few moments later a government jeep rolled out of the fortress. The occupant, an army major, unholstered his pistol and handed it to Guevara.

  “We are not interested in fighting. It is not necessary now.”

  The Cuban civil war ended there. A few days later David Phillips stood in the crowd as Fidel Castro entered Havana in a triumphal motorcade.

  Washington’s efforts to shore up the dictatorship, and then to force Batista into reforms that might stave off Castro, left the Cubans in no doubt as to U.S. policy. The change in government on January 2, 1959, could have ushered in both a new beginning and an opportunity for U.S. relations with Havana. Castro, suspicious from the outset, did little to make that happen. Eisenhower failed to grasp the opening both because of discomfort with Fidel and a certain impatience. Events led to a spectacular covert operation, an episode that would blacken America’s reputation as a proponent of democracy.

  The origins of the hostility that persists between the United States and Cuba has faded into the mists of time. Note therefore that in 1959 (notwithstanding Castro’s pronouncements decades later) Fidel Castro had not become a Communist nor his July 26th Movement a Communist Party. Nor did Castro bring Communists into government. According to a 1958 CIA report, the Cuban Communist Party favored general strike tactics, not the M-26 armed insurgency. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico all had Communist parties four or more times larger than Cuba’s. Castro’s own movement also far outnumbered the Cuban Communist Party.

  Relating to the Castro government, Eisenhower began with a wait-and-see attitude. The CIA’s initial assessment explained Batista’s fall by citing corruption and his consequent lack of public support. Allen Dulles is said to have taken this report and personally rewritten it. A paper Dulles forwarded to State in February 1959, not at all complimentary to Castro, called the situation “far from stable.” The paper asserted that the M-26 group lacked “dynamic positive leadership,” saw it “floundering,” its difficulties magnified by “the relative youth and inexperience of a great many top leaders.” Thus “the glamour of the Sierra Maestra and the straggly beards is rapidly wearing off . . .”

  Fidel visited Washington in April for a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He did not meet Eisenhower but spoke to State Department officials and with Vice President Richard Nixon, who thought Fidel sincere but reported, “He is either incredibly naive about communism or under communist discipline.” The State Department analysis read:

  With regard to his position on communism and the cold war struggle, Castro cautiously indicated that Cuba would remain in the western camp. However his position here must still be regarded as uncertain. He did go sufficiently far in his declarations to be vulnerable to the criticism of radicals among his supporters.

  On his own copy of the State Department analysis Eisenhower wrote, “We will check in a year!”

  Castro did have a problem, but with Cuban conservatives, not the radicals. By and large the landed, monied families had been tied to the Batista forces. Fearful of the revolution, they left in droves, taking their dollars with them. Within two weeks of Castro’s assumption of power in Havana, the CIA had set up an office in Miami, a field activity of its Domestic Contacts Division, to keep watch on the arriving refugees, headed by Justin F. Gleichauf, the sole agency officer involved. Miami presently became the largest station in the CIA’s global network, on a par with Bonn during the Soviet operations or Taiwan at the height of China activities.

  By December 1959 there were a hundred thousand Cuban emigrés in the United States alone. Without these skilled technicians, doctors, and lawyers—and their money—Cuba had little capital to diversify away from sugar, whose market centered in the United States and was regulated by a quota system. Meanwhile under Batista the Mafia had controlled gambling at the Havana hotels. The Godfather, Part II illustrates this also. The Mafia left when Castro prohibited gambling, drying up another source of capital. Expropriation, as attempted by Mossadegh in Iran and Arbenz in Guatemala, became the fidelista solution. An element of irony existed here since Castro’s father had once worked for United Fruit. In any case, in the fall of 1959 Fidel promulgated a decree for nationalization. That December the first American concern was “intervened,” as the Cubans called it. In 1960 the sugar plantations and Havana hotels followed. Land reform accelerated with the nationalization of large holdings, beginning with the Castro family plantation. It is said Fidel’s mother never forgave him. Fidelistas failed to offer compensation to owners, worsening the injury.

  Eisenhower feared fidelista exportation of revolution. There were reports of a “legion” created for this purpose. During 1959 and 1960 small, armed groups invaded Panama, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic, much as Castro himself had sailed to Cuba to establish his base in the Sierra Maestra. The rebels were citizens of their own countries. While some received Cuban assistance, they were in no sense directed by Castro. In fact the “invasion” of the Dominican Republic was carried out from Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory.

  The American government, even the CIA, recognized these factors to some degree. On November 5, 1959, Deputy Director Charles Cabell told a Senate judiciary subcommittee that neither the Cuban Communists nor the CIA considered Castro a Communist, that the Cuban Communist Party sought to influence Castro but did not control him. Cabell also downplayed fidelista participation in revolutionary expeditions, pointing out these were not organized or dominated by Cubans. He also conceded that “anti-Communists have an interest in rumors which will increase our alarm over the Communist influence in Cuba.”

  As Cabell spoke on Capitol Hill, at Foggy Bottom Secretary of State Christian Herter put finishing touches to a paper he sent Ike the same day. The memo proposed four measures on Cuba. These included doing nothing to help Castro consolidate power; a propaganda campaign to promote the American concept of democracy; encouraging opposition to Castro both in Cuba and elsewhere while avoiding any impression Washington was pressuring him; and preserving mutual interests for the United States and a “reformed” Cuban government.

  Herter ended on a revealing note: “In view of the special sensitivity of Latin America to United States ‘intervention,’ I would propose that the existence and substance of this current policy statement be held on a very strict ‘need to know’ basis.”

  Dwight Eisenhower accepted the proposals and also the secrecy, as Andrew Goodpaster told Herter on November 9. At the White House, knowledge would be confined to Goodpaster himself, Ike’s son John S. D. Eisenhower, Gordon Gray, and one confidential secretary. When Gray proposed that the Hull Board be brought into the circle, Allen Dulles shot that one down fast. In April 1959 the president had been willing to wait a year; now, six months later, Eisenhower approved measures that led to a secret war.

  The CIA already had its answer: in August 1959 discussions had begun on creating a paramilitary capability for Latin America. Studies ensued, with a recommendation that the DO’s Western Hemisphere Division set up a staff and move to acquire an airline usable in the region.

  Meanwhile the secret warriors also intervened to help put Castro in the penalty box. On November 24 Allen Dulles saw the British ambassador and asked that Great Britain resist Cuban attempts to buy weapons, in particular Hawker Hunter jets then under negotiation. The ambassador’s cable noted Dulles saying: “He hoped that any refusal by us to supply arms would directly lead to a Soviet-bloc offer to supply. Then he might be able to do something.” Dulles said Castro “had a streak of lunacy” and speculated that his leadership might last eight months or so, though if Fidel endured this “testing time” he might remain in power for a number of years. Director Dulles conceded that “there was at present no opposition to Castro . . . capable of action.”

  Several strange incidents occurred in Cuba around this time. On February 19 an American-piloted plane blew up while flying over the España sugar refinery in Matanzas province. A month later, near Matanzas town, two Americans were captured in another plane crash. The captives, William L. Schergales and Howard Rundquist, injured, were hospitalized; one asserted that the Castro government had hired them. The story could have been true or, just as likely, a bit of disinformation repeated by the American press.

  There was also an incident in Havana harbor. The Pan American dock, already nationalized, was unloading the French motor vessel La Coubre, carrying general cargo plus ammunition purchased from Belgium. On March 4, without warning, a blast blew away the ship’s bow and most of its superstructure. Secondary explosions ignited the stacked munitions; flames quickly spread. All the firefighters in Havana barely contained the blaze before it reached the nearby Tallapiedra electric plant. More than a hundred people were killed or injured. Castro blamed the Americans; Washington denied it. The only sure fact remained that the Compagnie Trans-Atlantique Française had lost a merchantman. A week later the Cubans expropriated their first three sugar mills.

  From their offices around the Reflecting Pool, CIA officials were on the case. The DO had had an officer, Edward A. Stanulis, planning full-time for CIA action in Latin American contingencies since September. Cuba became his number one priority. That November the agency ordered that operations were to be based on the premise that Cuba had a non-Communist government, but that instruction swiftly went into the round file. Director Dulles asserted in a December 4 speech that Latin Communists would use nationalism as a slogan to justify breaking ties with the United States. Just a week later J. C. King sent Dulles a memorandum insisting that Castro’s “ ‘far left’ dictatorship” not be permitted to stand. The WH Division chief advocated a range of actions, among them that “thorough consideration be given to the elimination of Fidel Castro . . . [which] would greatly accelerate the fall of the present government.” Allen Dulles, not yet willing to go that far, crossed out King’s word “elimination,” substituting “removal from Cuba.” The core of the paper recommended the CIA train a cadre of Cubans who would assemble other exiles in a Latin American country, after which they would infiltrate Cuba to lead anti-Castro dissidents. This formed the heart of the eventual Cuba paramilitary plan.

  Allen Dulles took the anti-Castro project to the 5412 Group on January 13, 1960. State questioned moving in the absence of solid internal opposition. Dulles acknowledged this criticism but emphasized the CIA would try to open a wedge for an opposition. Yet “over the long run,” Dulles observed, “the U.S. will not be able to tolerate the Castro regime in Cuba.”

  The 5412 Group conditionally approved. Examination of Special Group records by a Senate committee in the 1970s shows that Dulles recommended that the CIA prepare plans to effect Castro’s fall. Five days later at Quarters Eye a dozen people met with J. C. King to create a Cuba task force. The unit became the fourth branch of King’s division, WH/4 in CIA usage. Eighteen persons were assigned to WH/4 at headquarters, twenty at the Havana station, and two more under diplomatic cover at the U.S. consulate in Santiago, Cuba.

  Jacob D. Esterline became chief of the task force. A Burma OSS veteran, Esterline had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and wanted to be a lawyer. Recalled to service during the Korea years, he had been noticed among names on an assignment list by Ray Peers, who had him seconded to the CIA. The agency used Esterline at its Fort Benning training camp, then sent him to the Western Hemisphere Division in 1953. Esterline had never had anything to do with Latin America yet suddenly found himself deputy chief of the Guatemala coup task force. After that Esterline served as chief of station in Guatemala, then went to Venezuela as station chief, to rebuild networks decimated in another coup. He learned of plans of Venezuelan groups to protest a visit by Vice President Richard M. Nixon and attempted to persuade Washington to cancel the visit, or at least warn Nixon, but got nowhere. Then he witnessed a state visit by Fidel Castro, received by rapturous crowds in Caracas. Frank Wisner passed through town about then, and Esterline told him that if the agency decided to do anything about Castro, he wanted in. Now Esterline found himself selected chief of the Cuban task force.

  Early planning focused on several concepts. A guerrilla-leader ploy involved twenty to thirty Cubans who would return to the island, much as the CIA did in Tibet. A second plan aimed to disrupt the Cuban economy by sabotage of such targets as sugar refineries. Director Dulles carried that idea to the 5412 Group on February 17, and it became the first one he presented to President Eisenhower. Direct action to eliminate Fidel and Raul Castro and Che Guevara formed a third possibility.

  Director Dulles met with the president and Gordon Gray. Accompanied by aides, Dulles went armed with color schematic drawings of sugar refineries and presented a harassment plan, explaining how CIA proposed to disrupt production.

  Eisenhower listened patiently.

  “Allen, this is fine,” Ike interjected, “but if you’re going to make any move against Castro, don’t just fool around with sugar refineries. Let’s get a program that will really do something about Castro.”

  “Yes, sir!” Dulles responded.

  On March 9 the WH/4 task force held its first meeting. J. C. King upstaged Esterline, telling the audience that Director Dulles would shortly take a project paper to the 5412 Group. King worried that the CIA could not use certain U.S. islands for psychological warfare or paramilitary purposes, and that leaders of friendly nations were not yet willing to “stick their necks out further to support an operation directed at the overthrow of the Castro regime.” Presidential approval could remove some of those obstacles.

  Colonel King exaggerated when he told his officers there were prospects for a Cuban attack on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, and he stretched evidence to say Latin leaders feared they would soon be victims of Cuban exploitation; but Allen Dulles used similar reasoning presenting the Cuba paper at 5412. King also noted that unless the top fidelistas could be eliminated in one “package,” the operation might be a drawn-out affair in which Castro could be overthrown by force. The plan crafted by Jake Esterline and Richard C. Drain envisioned an exile force gathered over a period of months.

  A White House meeting on March 10 touched on these themes. Cuba appeared ninth on a long agenda. The NSC considered suspending the doctrine of nonintervention in Latin America in the event communism dominated or threatened any of its nations. A policy paper advised sanctions against any Latin state that even established close ties with the Soviet bloc. In the Cuba discussion the NSC Planning Board foresaw no clear prospect for good relations with Castro. The board favored economic warfare, eliminating subsidies on Cuban sugar. Further, Washington should convince the Organization of American States (OAS) to cast Cuba as a hemispheric problem, eliminating a key obstacle to action. Adm. Arleigh Burke, attending as chief of naval operations, wanted someone to unite the anti-Castro factions. Many of those around Fidel were worse than the “Maximum Leader” himself, Burke felt, and therefore “any plan for removal of Cuban leaders should be a package deal.” Allen Dulles observed that the eligible leaders were no longer in Cuba and noted CIA had a design to deal with Castro.

  “We might have another Black Hole of Calcutta in Cuba,” Ike remarked.*

  Soon Director Dulles had his plan—the Esterline-Drain paper, a scheme he unveiled on March 14 after the annual review of 5412 activities. Based on the discussion, Quarters Eye did a quick revision titled “A Program of Action Against the Castro Regime,” dated March 16, 1960. The objective was “to bring about the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the U.S. in such a manner as to avoid any appearance of U.S. intervention.” The essence would be “to induce, support, and so far as possible direct action, both inside and outside of Cuba, by selected groups” with whom the CIA already had contact. The plan envisioned that “since a crisis inevitably entailing drastic action in or toward Cuba could be provoked by circumstances beyond the control of the U.S. before the covert action program has accomplished its objective, every effort will be made to carry it out in such a way as progressively to improve the capability of the U.S. to act in a crisis.”

  The secret warriors felt they could create “a responsible, appealing and unified Cuban opposition” located outside Cuba, after which “a powerful propaganda offensive can be initiated in the name of the declared opposition.” To undermine Castro’s popular support, a semi-covert “grey” radio station would broadcast on long- and shortwave bands and, in the original proposal, would be located on Swan Island, northeast of Honduras. The propaganda would be supplemented by Miami commercial stations and clandestine leaflets distributed in Cuba. The CIA reported progress toward creation of a covert apparatus inside Cuba, “responsive to the orders and directions of the ‘exile’ opposition.” The agency estimated it could have an organization up and running within sixty days.

  Although Esterline and Drain presented their concept in fair detail, the CIA’s budget estimate did not provide for the size of force eventually reached. The first budget projections called for $2.5 million over two years, far less than eventually spent. The concept received the code name JM/Ate;† the Pentagon would know it as Project Pluto.

  The paragraph on military action from the Project Ate concept is worth quoting at length:

  Preparations have already been made for the development of an adequate paramilitary force outside of Cuba, together with mechanisms for the necessary logistical support of covert military operations on the island. Initially a cadre of leaders will be recruited after careful screening and trained as paramilitary instructors. In a second phase a number of paramilitary cadres will be trained at secure locations outside of the United States so as to be available for immediate deployment into Cuba to organize, train, and lead resistance forces recruited there after the establishment of one or more centers of resistance.