The U.S. State Department yesterday released a document titled “Cuba Report: Capital of Communism in the 21st Century.” The document describes the extensive scope of Cuban espionage within the United States and accuses the Caribbean nation of promoting anti-Americanism on U.S. soil and internationally.
“For nearly 70 years, the Cuban regime has waged a sustained campaign of subversion against the United States, a campaign that has infiltrated the highest levels of the U.S. government,” it begins.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio supported the report’s findings, writing in
The report highlights that Cuban-backed subversive campaigns will continue into the 21st century, and singles out left-wing organizations and activists in the United States, including the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Code Pink, and left-wing streamer Hassan Fiker, as being influenced by Cuban propaganda campaigns.
Cuba’s role in recent civil unrest and heightened domestic tensions in the United States is also highlighted. The island nation was accused of attempting to create “a revolutionary infrastructure designed to turn America against itself (on American soil).”
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla refuted the claims in the document, calling it “the latest error by the U.S. State Department regarding Cuba” and “a pretext to continue (the United States’) cruel and criminal economic war that punishes every Cuban family.”
How true are the report’s main claims?
The history of Cuban espionage in the United States is well known.
Notable members of Cuban intelligence include Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia who admitted to spying for the Cuban government for 40 years, and Ana Belén Montes, a senior analyst for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) who leaked Cuban government secrets for nearly 17 years.
In 1998, the United States also discovered a large network of Cuban intelligence operatives who had infiltrated anti-communist Cuban diaspora groups based in Florida. This group, called the “Wasp Network,” is the largest Cuban spy ring discovered in the United States.
The report details all of these well-documented cases, but also highlights claims by certain U.S. intelligence officers that Cuba continues to pose a serious intelligence threat and may employ agents in high-ranking positions within the U.S. government.
The adversarial nature of Cuban-American relations makes it likely that Cuba is spying on the United States, and vice versa, but claims that Cuba has infiltrated the highest levels of the U.S. government have not been substantiated.
in conversation latin america report, Dr. Philip Brenner, an expert on U.S.-Cuba relations and a professor at American University, criticized the document.
“It lacks credibility. We’re talking about a country that President Trump called a failed state, and now he’s claiming it’s a center of international communism.”
“I am convinced that (the Cubans) are spying on the United States. The United States calls Cuba an enemy. They would be crazy not to try to spy. But… it looks like the American government has eradicated all Cuban spies from the government.”
Brenner hypothesized that the capabilities of Cuban intelligence services were so depleted that most intelligence analysis in Cuba was conducted on the island and obtained from open sources, as opposed to spies operating in the United States.
The State Department report also cites the supposed alliance between the current American left and the Cuban government as evidence of Cuba’s subversive influence campaign against the United States.
One example of this alliance, according to the document, is Cuba’s professed support for the George Floyd protests in 2020.
In a speech to the United Nations in September 2020, shortly after the incident, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel criticized the United States for “abundant expressions of hatred, racism, and police brutality that are virtually unchecked.”
But U.S. leaders also have a history of weighing in on domestic protests in Cuba. “The United States stands with the Cuban people as they assert their universal rights,” former U.S. President Joe Biden said during the 2021 anti-government protests in Cuba.
The report also notes Cuba’s history of sympathy for U.S. activists who oppose the U.S. state or its policies.
As the report alleges, Cuba has a history of harboring left-wing activists who escaped the U.S. justice system, such as Assata Shakur, a member of the separatist and black nationalist Black Liberation Army. After being convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1977, he escaped prison and was granted asylum in Cuba.
The participation of various American leftists in the Nuestra América Solidarity convoy to Cuba, organized at the height of the United States’ oil blockade of the island, is also used as evidence of Cuba’s propaganda for the American left.
Various Nuestra América participants, including Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s daughter Isra Hirsi and Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls, criticized U.S. policies toward Cuba and praised the Cuban system.
Nonetheless, the convoy was a grassroots initiative organized by a group of international activists rather than the Cuban state, and the activists’ admiration for the Cuban regime was more likely the result of pre-existing ideological beliefs rather than Cuban ideological propaganda.
Why is the report being released now?
Some, including the Cuban president and foreign minister, speculate that the report is being used as a pretext for the United States to maintain or strengthen its aggressive stance toward Cuba.
Dr. Brenner agreed that this was a possibility, but he theorized that the document could also be used within the Trump administration. The professor argued that mentioning left-wing groups in the report could be used as a way to smear Democratic politicians who will contest the upcoming US midterm elections in November.
The report “looks like an effort to revive McCarthyism… (it) attacks domestic groups that are gaining popularity, especially the Democratic Socialists of America… so this is creating a kind of red scare in preparation for attacks during the midterm elections.”
“Red Scare” and “McCarthyism” refer to a period of widespread suspicion in American history associated with the early Cold War when U.S. Senator John McCarthy launched various investigations into allegations of communist infiltration in various branches of the U.S. government.
This led to many Americans being falsely accused of being communist sympathizers.
DSA won a series of Democratic primaries earlier this year. This means that a variety of candidates will run in the midterm elections.
Trump may therefore be “using Cuba as a foil for his domestic goal of winning the midterm elections” against increasingly progressive Democrats, Brenner argued.
“It is an extremely authoritarian document aimed at discrediting government officials and potential government officials who oppose the president,” the professor concluded.
The release of the report comes as tensions between Havana and Washington continue to rise. Cuba recently suffered its third nationwide blackout this year as the Trump administration continues to impose a near-total oil blockade on the island and repeatedly threatens its political leadership with regime change.
Featured Image: The Welch-McCarthy hearings where Senator McCarthy (right), represented by Senior Senate Counsel Joseph Welch (left), accused the U.S. military of being infiltrated by communists.
Image source: United States Senate via Wikimedia Commons
patent: Creative Commons License
