Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (review)

Based solely on the extent of his research, Piero Gleijeses deserves to win major book prizes. Gleijeses, who has previously published solid studies on U.S. interventions in the Dominican Republic (The Dominican Crisis [1978]), and Guatemala (Shattered Hope [1991]), has in this analysis of Cuba's adventures in Africa (1959-76) set a standard for the writing of international history. The author traveled to Cuba 14 times, gained access to Cuban archives, and interviewed 84 Cubans, many of whom had volunteered for African duty. He supplemented his work in Cuba with archival research in Belgium, East and West Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. He systematically read numerous African newspapers in various languages and interviewed officials across the continent. Notwithstanding this extraordinary effort, Gleijeses lamented that he did not manage to see Soviet documents, and that he did not receive permission to interview Fidel and Raúl Castro.

In 1975-76, Cuba rushed 30,000 troops to Angola to rescue a Marxist-led liberation movement that was fighting to gain control over the former Portuguese colony. The intervention came as a "total surprise" to U.S. leaders, especially Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The United States was covertly working with South Africa to support purported anti-Communist Angolans such as Jonas Savimbi. The Cubans routed the South African troops and their Angolan allies. Although it seemed noteworthy in the mid-1970s that a small Caribbean nation would project power in a distant continent, the Angolan intervention represented the continuation of Cuba's African policy. Since 1962, Cuban volunteers, soldiers and doctors, had fought and worked in Africa. In response to Algerian requests, Castro dispatched arms and troops to assist Prime Minister Ahmed Ben Bella in securing his nation's independence. In late 1964, Ernesto "Che" Guevara toured the continent to assess revolutionary possibilities. A year later, Guevara was in the African bush, leading a column of Cuban fighters in Zaire. Between 1964 and 1974, small groups of Cuban combat troops assisted Guinea-Bissau fighters in the independence struggle of the Portuguese colony. Prior to the intervention in Angola, about 2,000 Cubans served in Africa, suffering nine fatalities. By comparison, only 40 Cubans fought in Latin America, including Guevara's pathetic 1967 mission to Bolivia. Ironically, U.S. officials inevitably exaggerated Cuban activities in the Western Hemisphere and barely noticed the Cuban intervention in Africa.

Gleijeses suggests that a mixture of idealism and pragmatism explains Cuba's policy in Africa. In Castro's judgement, the duty of a revolutionary was to make revolution. Castro further theorized that Cuba, a racially mixed, impoverished, colonized nation, shared a special empathy for African liberation movements. Cuban volunteers yearned for the heroic life and the mystique of guerrilla warfare. One Cuban officer recalled that "we dreamed of revolution" (p. 204). But the Cuban interventions also involved realpolitik. Throughout the 1960s, the United States spurned Cuban efforts to reach a bilateral modus vivendi. Cubans feared a U.S. invasion, and Castro and his advisors concluded that the United States would tolerate the Cuban Revolution only when confronted with revolutionary movements throughout the world. As the Cubans saw it, their survival depended on nurturing "second, third, and fourth Vietnams" (p. 215).

Students of international history will welcome Gleijeses's declaration that the Cold War cannot be analyzed merely from the perspectives of great powers. U.S. officials assumed that Cuba served as a surrogate for Soviet foreign policy. In fact, Castro rarely bothered to inform Soviet leaders of his African initiatives, and the Soviet Union flatly opposed the massive Angolan intervention. Castro reasoned that the Soviets had lost the revolutionary fervor, becoming too interested in détente with the United States. Cuba could not, however, escape the realities of international politics. Castro tempered his enthusiasm...