Records: Kissinger made plans to attack Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

Records: Kissinger made plans to attack Cuba
| October 1, 2014 | Updated: October 1, 2014 2:18pm

NEW YORK (AP) — Newly revealed government records show that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger drew up contingency plans nearly 40 years ago to attack Cuba over their deployment of troops to Angola.

The documents were declassified at the request of the National Security Archive, which published them online Wednesday. An account of the episode is being published in a new book, "Back Channel to Cuba," written by William M. LeoGrande, a professor at American University, and Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuban Documentation Project at the National Security Archive.

Among other things, the documents detail a Feb. 25, 1976, Oval Office meeting where Kissinger told President Gerald R. Ford, "I think we are going to have to smash Castro. We probably can't do it until after the election."

http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Records-Kissinger-made-plans-to-attack-Cuba-5794275.php

[FiveGoodMen]

1. That's some of his 'American values' at work!

[Judi Lynn]

2. Secret History of U.S.-Cuba Ties Reveals Henry Kissinger Plan to Bomb Havana for Fighting Apartheid

Secret History of U.S.-Cuba Ties Reveals Henry Kissinger Plan to Bomb Havana for Fighting Apartheid

- VIDEO -

In the new book, "Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana," authors Peter Kornbluh and William LeoGrande use recently declassified documents to expose the secret history of dialogue between the United States and Cuba. Among the revelations are details of how then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger considered launching airstrikes against Cuba after Fidel Castro sent troops to support independence fighters in Angola in 1976. In the years that followed, top-secret U.S. emissaries, including former President Jimmy Carter and Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez, worked to normalize relations with Cuba. The book’s release comes as Cuban leader Raúl Castro is set to participate for the first time in next year’s Summit of the Americas in Panama. Cuba recently denounced the Obama administration for extending the more than 50-year embargo for another year in a little-noticed move in September.

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Transcript


This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: A declassified document cited in Back Channel to Cuba offers a window into the first formal negotiating session to explore normalized relations between the United States and Cuba. We spend the rest of the hour with the authors of a new book that exposes the secret history of dialogue between the United States and Cuba. Much of the book relies on recently declassified top-secret documents. Among the revelations are details of how then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger considered launching airstrikes against Cuba after Fidel Castro sent troops to support independence fighters in Angola in 1976. In the years that followed, top-secret U.S. emissaries, including former President Jimmy Carter and Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez, worked to normalize relations with Cuba.

The book’s release comes as Cuban leader Raúl Castro is set to participate for the first time in next year’s Summit of the Americas in Panama. Earlier this month, Panama’s foreign minister flew to Havana to personally invite Castro to attend for the first time. President Obama has not said yet if he will attend the talks.

More:
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/2/secret_history_of_us_cuba_ties