The Closest of Enemies (review)

230 SAIS REVIEW published before the recent Iranian arms scandal came to light, it stands to the author's credit that his final guidelines are still appropriate. He sees recent U.S. diplomatic errors as a product of American misunderstanding of Iran combined with a polarized geopolitical outlook. Iran and its neighbors do not fit into a "good guy-bad guy" scenario. Iran still remains a geopolitical prize, with the Persian Gulf to the south and the Soviet Union to the north. Thus, the United States cannot afford to generate further animosity with the Islamic state. According to Ramazani, it is in the U.S. interest to discard old misconceptions and adopt a new, more pragmatic approach to handling tensions in the gulf. Revolutionary Iran provides an informative analysis of the current scenario in the region as well as a set of sound suggestions for a new and long overdue approach. Foreign-policy makers and scholars alike would do well to read it. The Closest of Enemies. By Wayne S. Smith. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1987. 308 pp. $19.95/cloth. Reviewed by Angelo Capozzi, M.A. candidate, SAIS. In August of 1982 Wayne Smith resigned from his post as head of the United States Interests Section in Havana, Cuba. His action was in protest of the Reagan administration's foreign-policy initiatives in Cuba and in the rest of Latin America since 1981. Smith's foreign-service career thus came to a premature end after twenty-five years of distinguished diplomacy, representing the United States in Cuba, the Soviet Union, Brazil, and Argentina. The Closest ofEnemies is not only a history of twenty-eight years of U.S.Cuban relations; it is also a personal account of U.S. foreign policy toward the Castro regime that asks pointed questions about the current direction and purpose of that policy as it relates to Latin America and beyond. The book begins with an account of Smith's early years as a junior foreign-service officer in Cuba during the final days of president Fulgencio Batista. The author provides a rare eyewitness account of the historic march of Castro's forces into Havana. The story continues with the uncertain first year of the revolution and Castro's steady drift leftward, followed by the termination of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States in 1961. The following sixteen years of diplomatic "divorce" were the low point in U.S.-Cuban relations. Smith eloquendy discusses developments inside and outside of Cuba during those critical years when U.S. policy was implemented without the advice of diplomats in Cuba. PresidentJimmy Carter's opening to Castro in 1977 led to Wayne Smith's reacquaintance with Cuba through his involvement in the negotiations over maritime boundaries with that country. In 1979 he finally returned to Cuba as head of the United States Interests Section. Once there Smith dealt with a variety of divisive issues, highlighted by Castro's prisoner release program and the famous Mariel sea lift in the summer of 1980. But Smith's growing disen- BOOK REVIEW 231 chantment with Reagan administration policy led to his resignation from the State Department in 1982. In spite of his antagonistic feelings toward Reagan's policies, Smith's approach to Cuba is pragmatic; he stresses that the gulf between the United States and Cuba is wide and will remain so. He accounts for the U.S. "collective selfimage " when he asserts that "Cuba's revolutionary ethos clashes with the American quest for stability and world order." Nevertheless, Smith sees a possibility for significant improvement in relations between the two historical enemies. Castro has come to realize that a modus vivendi with the United States would better serve his interests. The author maintains that a conciliatory approach would also make sense for the United States. Surely, we can learn to deal more openly with Cuba as we deal with the Soviet Union. Easing U.S. -Cuban tensions might also benefit efforts to resolve the crisis in Central America, as both countries appear to have a stake in the region's future. Smith concludes that the key failure in U.S. diplomacy with Cuba over the...