Lessons Not Learned

April 17, 1961 Adlai Stevenson at the UN - "These exiles nurse a natural, burning desire to bring freedom to Cuba, and towards that end they work with the dedicated concentration which Jose Marti and other Cuban exiles in the United States have shown in the tradition which is now nearly 100 years old.""Dr. Roa now tells us that the revolutionary government wants only to live in peace, that it does not threaten its neighbors.."It is not the United States which is the cause of Dr. Castro's trouble"

My resopnse.  The exiles are and have been led by a group of people who benefitted from the system that existed before the Revolution.  Their sytem is the one that led to the Revolution. The system that they preferred was one of inequality and they were "free" to abuse their fellow Cubans.  To lump them together with Jose Marti is disgraceful.  Jose Marti understood the desires of the United States and was proven correct as the US imposed itself at the end of Cuba's war for independence.  Those who were invading Cuba at Playa Giron were trained and supported by the US government.  They were not acting independently.  The US has long been a source of trouble for Cuba.


April 18, 1961 Adlai Stevenson at the UN - "Let me be absolutely clear: that the present events are the uprising of the Cuban people"

My response:  History has shown that there was no uprising and Mr. Stevenson's statement was pure fiction.

April 20, 1961 Adlai Stevenson at the UN - "Let me say that we don't deny that the exiles from Cuba have received the sympathy of many people inside and outside the United States". "And what are the lessons to be learned?"

My response: Received money, training, jobs with the CIA all over the hemisphere, and some even the ability to live a life as a terrorist and retire in Miami.


April 20, 1961 John F. Kennedy to the American Society of Newspaper Editors - "I have decided in the last 24 hours to discuss briefly at this time the recent events in Cuba."."We intend to profit from this lesson.  We intend to re-examine and reorient our forces of all kinds- cur tactics and our institutions here in this community.  We intend to intensify our efforts for a struggle in many ways more difficult than war, where disappointment will often accompany us."
My response:  It is a shame that there were no lessons learned from this unfortunate event.  The US continues its attempted subversion of Cuba.  Up until now, the sovereignty of Cuba and other nations is ignored by the great power that feels that it has a special right to act how it pleases with no reprecussions.  The tactics certainly have changed but they will remain useless because the Cuban people have no desire to become trapped in the heartless system that they overcame through struggle 52 years ago.For Washington, in the case of Cuba, disappointment has been its accompaniment as JFK predicted.