Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean By Alex von Tunzelmann

Jan-Maat

"The secret war in the Caribbean destroyed any hope of freedom and democracy in Cuba, Haiti & the Dominican Republic. It toppled democracies. It supported dictators. It licensed those dictator's worst excesses. It financed terrorism. It set up death squads. It turned Cuba communist, and kept it communist for half a century. It did massive and permanent damage to the international reputation of the United States. It nearly triggered a nuclear holocaust. The fact that this war began, and was run, with good intentions is not a mere historical curiosity. It may be one of the most important lessons of our age" (p.428)

So closes Alex von Tunzelmann's Red Heat a history of the war against communism in the Caribbean from the 1950s through to the beginning of the 1970s, in fact it is a bit narrower than that, she looks only at Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. Just as in her earlier book
Indian Summer, which is about the end of British rule in India, this is a vivacious, account written with verve, it lacks a little on the analysis perhaps, all her argument and reason for writing the book is dumped there into that last paragraph of the book and you might then summerise that as 'what goes around, comes around' or even as: blowback.

Fortunately generations of US politicians and bureaucrats seem to have been ignorant of their own country's history in the region, and / or were completely blind to how that history might possibly be perceived from the point of view of the underdog (the inhabitants of the three states considered), allowing each cohort the opportunity to repeat the same policies with the same lack of success. Judging by von Tunzelmann's book no one can be surprised if for the next hundred or more years the United States finds itself repeatedly obliged to intervene in Afghanistan and Iraq to deal with the consequences of their previous interventions.

von Tunzelmann suggests that Lyndon Johnson's operation power pack in the Dominican republic to crush the democratic uprising in favour of a Junta of army officers approved of by the United States was a forerunner to the 'shock and awe' of the 2nd Iraq war (p.401), that seemed a bit strong, the tradition seemed to be that the USA generally intervened with shocking and awful , overwhelming strength and on the whole that seems more reasonable than risking the lives of service personnel in underpowered interventions.

The Kennedy brothers emerge as nasty pieces of work who only slowly mellowed into more reasonable human beings - in the case of the elder brother possibly aided by the death of one of his children which is not a humane way to improve the quality of our politicians. Failure in Cuba encourage Kennedy to redouble efforts in Vietnam, no learning from experience here.

Successful Caribbean rulers were masters of reading and manipulating powerful Americans and the US political system, Trujillo had a Congressman or two as well as a senator in his back pocket, they spent money on public relations , consultancy, and advertising as well as wining and dining to win friends and influence people, and they maintained pet communists, sometimes even in government so they could tell US politicians that they absolutely needed millions of dollars for 'development' or 'military aid' to be paid via their personal Swiss bank accounts to prevent an imminent communist takeover . There was not much of a difference socially between the Dictator's and their rivals - the Castro brothers were brothers-in-law to one of Batista's ministers which gained them relatively favourable conditions in prison.

von Tunzelman starts off in the nineteenth century and her account has repeated ex-dictators fleeing with suitcases full of banknotes, the smallest amount was a mere nine million dollars, and relatives (to help carry the suitcases), Baby Doc Duvalier and his mother managed to extract the most which funded a barely luxurious lifestyle in Paris.

A consistent theme was the echo chamber of the political world, one which now thanks to the internet us lesser mortals can enjoy too, so intelligence reports told them there was communism, and when they didn't then the intelligence was obviously faulty, the reverse occurred once Castro took over in Cuba, there despite even conducting secret polling of Cubans, US politicians refused to accept that his regime was widely popular and the USA deeply hated (this in the late 1950s) .

Religion, von Tunzelmann explains, was a key factor, patriotism and religion fed into each other, dead patriots became martyrs in folk religion occasionally aided by US photographs which presumably accidentally might even leave an executed opponent of US policy looking very much like Christ being taken down from the Cross. Everyone, south of Florida at least, could perceive their country's history as one of cruxifixion in the national interests of the USA.

Early interventions were not uniformly negative, there tended to a certain amount of infrastructure constructed, but invariably governance was something visited upon populations, not something they participated in, nor was any energy put into education with the exception of police and paramilitaries, so after the US pulled out government could only be either through the military or through coalitions of the rich and powerful, racism seems to have been a factor in this - Haiti in particular was written off for that reason.

This is a book whose writing is as sweet as Caribbean sugar, but left me with something of a rum fuelled hangover.

Steve

Ms. von Tunzelmann has written an excellent damning account of American relations with Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, focusing on the presidencies of Eisenhower through Johnson, reminding me of that well-researched volume Bitter Fruit. The Kennedy administration, in particular, appears downright inept—and not just with respect to Latin America and the Caribbean, for policies in this region were a mere prelude for what was to follow in Southeast Asia. When I first came to read this genre, detailing misguided international policies, I felt angry. “How could a group of men, always men, it seems, behave so criminally and get away with it?” I thought. Now, however, a read like this supports confirmation bias because I feel this behavior is all-too-common, affecting us even today.

Despite my belief in the merits of secular humanism, I’m at a loss how to apply that concept through a standardized policy framework to such messy conflicted realms; the easy answers, let the people decide their best interests feels naïve, or let American foreign policy bow to our commercial interests feels harsh and insensitive. Historical, or even current, international relationships may be best measured against a set of optimal realistically potential outcomes, it seems to me. Utility maximizing computer algorithms do not decide government action; that task is left to most imperfect humans, usually unqualified and/or biased elected politicians, who are then tasked with orchestrating policies that involve:

(a) complex, longstanding historical factors,
(b) uncertain domestic public opinion,
(c) American military hegemony,
(d) diverse, sometimes conflicting, commercial interests,
(e) heterogeneous ethnicities and cultures,
(f) testosterone,
(g) imperfect information combined with time constraints,
(h) groupthink,
(i) cognitive dissonance,
(j) the vagaries of the human condition, and
(k) other factors beyond my immediate grasp.

It’s no wonder outcomes can, and often do, go so awry. We don’t see much of this, I suspect, in the history of US-Norwegian relations, nor in that of the US and Australia—that’s not to say the files are devoid of incidents of sad buffoonery, however. There are some regions of the world it appears where these types of stories are riper for cultivation. Even today, consider the portrayal of Afghanistan as a threat to the US. Is there any country on this planet less of a threat to American soil than landlocked, impoverished, half-a-world away Afghanistan? Never mind the fact that the perpetrators of 9/11 weren’t even Afghani! I feel American policy in Afghanistan is more a statement on the pliability of the American electorate and the effectiveness of the military-industrial complex in propagating a selfish agenda.

Rather than paraphrasing some of Ms. von Tunzelmann’s valuable observations, I sense it’s worth quoting them at some length here.

Reflecting on John Foster Dulles’ death in 1959, she writes (p. 143):

Ironically, Foster’s sense of an inexorable communist advance and capitalist collapse resembled Karl Marx’s theory of history. But it related little to reality. Khrushchev spoke frequently of his desire to demonstrate in the Soviet Union progress that the world would wish to follow. So far, though, the glittering delights of life under communism were not apparent to many people. Since June 1953, fifteen thousand people had been leaving East Germany through Berlin every month. The Soviet Union had fallen disastrously behind in the arms race against the United States. It was also in the process of falling out with China, its most significant and substantial ally: Mao sneered at Khrushchev’s poetic aspirations toward “peaceful cooperation” with capitalist states. If the Soviets really were bent on world domination, they were making a poor job of it. But by predicating his foreign policy on inevitable conflict with the left, extending friendship to almost any regime on the right, however deplorable, and defining communism as the ultimate anti-Americanism, John Foster Dulles helped create the conditions for a far more virulent spread of communism than Khrushchev’s hazy ideas of Soviet progress ever did.

With respect to the Cuban Revolution, she summed things up nicely (p. 246):

The State Department had been hoodwinked by the central myth of the Cuban Revolution: that twelve undercover communists had stolen an entire island from a well-armed pro-American dictator. But there were not just twelve of Castro’s men; the Granma survivors had been able to link into a large and well-connected island-wide underground. They were not undercover communists; most of them had not been communists at all. And they had not stolen the island; Batista and his army had given to them. All the decisive facts of the Cuban Revolution were ignored, and with them all its real lessons. It was now believed—absurdly, but sincerely—that a group of communists barely numerous enough to make up a football team would be capable of taking over entire nations in the blink of an eye. Communism, it seemed, was uncontrollably powerful. It had to be found, and it had to be stopped.

Her final paragraph is worth remembering (p. 377):

The secret war in the Caribbean destroyed any hope of freedom and democracy in Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. It toppled democracies. It supported dictators. It licensed those dictators’ worst excesses. It financed terrorism. It set up death squads. It turned Cuba communist, and kept it communist for half a century. It did massive and permanent damage to the international reputation of the United States. It nearly triggered a nuclear holocaust. The fact that this war began, and was run, with good intentions is not a mere historical curiosity. It may be one of the most important lessons of our age.

This book is an important compilation of a grim historical record, one which policy makers should keep front of mind as they make future important security decisions. Then again, since there are so many examples of poor policy-making, wouldn't you think the technocracy, stabled as it is with legions of PhDs, would have learned from them by now? I guess not. And a final request, can someone please explain logically why American policy is so hostile to Cuba more than 60 years following its revolution? I’m surprised this work has not garnered greater acclaim and popularity, both of which are much deserved.

Jerome Otte

A well-written, lively and colorful account of the Cold War in Latin America. Well-researched, Tunzelmann shows how the US involved itself in the region, how it backed various unsavory characters in order to fight communism and how it plotted to overthrow leaders just as unsavory.

Throughout the 1950s, the Soviets showed little interest in Latin America (in fact, between 1943 and 1955, the KGB made zero payments to communist parties in the region). And few Latin American politicians described themselves as communists. The KGB even thought that Fidel was “burgeois.” The American government saw anti-American sentiment in the region as a product of Soviet influence. It was actually the other way around. And anti-Castro policies did more to help Castro consolidate power than it did to hinder him in doing so.

The author’s treatment of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis is particularly good. Her treatment of the Cuban revolution is very insightful. Fidel was pretty much a radical social democrat, and he never had any sympathy for the communist party. Initially, Fidel was an opportunist, taking money from the right and manpower from the left. The Cuban revolution was essentially dominated by three factions: a center-right government, a center-left dominated by Fidel, and a radical left led by Raúl Castro and Ce Guevara, neither of whom wielded much influence over Fidel. “Do you know what I’m going to do with Che Guevara?” Fidel once asked guests at a dinner party. “I’m going to send him to Santo Domingo to see if Trujillo kills him.”

“If you think I’m radical,” Fidel told the press, “wait till you see my little brother.” Fidel was always careful to keep his distance from the communist party.

Still, Tunzelmann is prone to some exaggerations. At one point, she describes some Cuban terror plots in the US and theorizes that they were staged by the US government. Her claim is based loosely on a memo dealing with “Operation Northwoods” (admittedly a rather insane plot) but she doesn’t really point out that just because the action was proposed in a memo, it doesn’t really mean the government was prepared to carry it out. Tunzelmann also writes with certainty on exactly when certain things happened (like when Castro became a communist) , even though the subject in question is still a matter of some debate.

Still, Tunzelmann shows a good command of the confusing politics of Latin America, where democracy was dictatorship, ideology was typically irrelevant, and communism was just a word dictators used to get Washington’s attention.

Paul Wilson

Engaging read on America's (mostly) bone-headed Latin American foreign policy during the height of the Cold War. In supporting thuggish dictators like Batista, Trujillo, and Duvalier, the CIA and State Departments created perfect environments for communist uprisings that they were ostensibly trying to prevent.

I was surprised to learn that Castro was not a full-blown communist when he seized power in Cuba. His brother Raul and Che Guerva were the real believers, but Fidel was initially more of a pragmatist. In not effectively building a relationship with the United States, Fidel created a tenuous alliance with the Soviet Union, which ultimately led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The book also confirmed my ambivalent thoughts on Kennedy's presidency, which started out very poorly, but had the potential to reach greatness that his last year in office promised. The reckless support of the Bay of Pigs and saber rattling of placing ballistic missiles in Turkey led to the Soviets planting bombs in Cuba. Only after the seriousness of that crisis did Kennedy understand the error of his ways and sought more peaceful solutions with the Soviets, as outlined in his 1963 commencement address at American University.

Great read for 20th century political history nerds.

Felix

It feels good after like 2 3-star books to finally read something that’s legitimately 5 stars

If you consider yourself interested in the Cold War, the Caribbean, Cuba, American foreign policy or whatever this book is a must read

I feel like most Cold War stuff is about Vietnam, Berlin Wall or nuclear shenanigans

This book has nuclear shenanigans but the scope is quite large and it covers the political happenings of three countries simultaneously, which is really good

Great book, amazing even, I close it feeling smarter than when I started it, a hard thing to do considering my 200 iq.

Buy it, read it, enjoy it

Elena Sala

RED HEAT. CONSPIRACY, MURDER AND THE COLD WAR IN THE CARIBBEAN (2011) can be read almost as the most gripping of thrillers. It is a nightmarish story of madness and outrageous incompetence which is well researched, accessible and informative.

Several decades of U.S. interference in Latin American affairs explain the installation of three dictators in the Caribbean during the 1950's: Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic), “Papa Doc” Duvalier (Haiti) and Fulgencio Batista (Cuba). They were the bizarre, corrupt, sadistic leaders of impoverished countries but, while it was convenient, the U.S. turned a blind eye to their atrocities.

However, things changed in 1959. Fidel Castro's "revolution" managed to persuade three successive American presidents that Cuba was a real Communist threat right at the doorstep of America. Actually, strong nationalist impulses and widespread anti-Americanism were pervasive in Latin America but the U.S. mistakenly confused Castro's "revolution" as a threat that would lead to Communist takeovers across the region. In fact, revolution is too strong a word to describe what happened in Cuba: Fulgencio Batista abandoned the island because he had run out of support and Fidel was able to take power almost without a fight. Unlike Raúl, his brother, Fidel was primarily a nationalist, not really a communist.

In response to this perceived threat, U.S. foreign policy in the Caribbean proceeded down a path of blunders and irrational conspiracies that defy credibility. The author points out that "the Trujillo and Duvalier regimes were among the most kleptocratic, sadistic, repressive and murderous in the entire twentieth century – a century which, tragically, provided plenty of competition. The State Department knew what was going on in these countries. And yet the idea that Fidel Castro was the worst of these leaders took hold and stuck, regardless of the evidence – and the bodies – piling up.”

For the U.S., Castro was "the worst of these leaders" because of Communism. Inevitably, the doomed U.S. invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, one of the major blunders of the period, just made things worse: Soviet involvement in Cuba became even stronger; and soon after this episode came the Cuban Missile Crisis, one of the most terrifying outcomes of this period of incompetent American foreign policy in the Caribbean.

RED HEAT is an entrancing, difficult to put down book for readers interested in American foreign policy and the history of the three unfortunate Caribbean countries and their ruthless leaders.

Andrew

A great account of the United States and its intelligence services blood soaked dealings in the carribean and latin America more generally. If one did not hold a poor view of said nations political dealings before reading this they would be hard pressed not to afterwards

Pinko Palest

surprisingly good, and a gripping read, even though the author has little sympathy with revolutionary movements

Barry Sierer

I stopped reading this book at about page 29. Despite my interest in the history of the Caribbean (especially during the Cold War), Von Tunzelmann’s writing style feels more suited to a tabloid than history. The author frequently moves from one shocking act (murders, riots, rebellions, occupations by US Marines) to another with little or no context of the events.

A look at the notes in the back shows that Von Tunzelmann has gone through an impressive array sources for this work. It’s a shame that she has neglected context and background so much for what could have been a fascinating read.

Adeyinka Makinde

Two things come to mind after reading Alex Von Tunzelman’s gripping tale of United States decades cum centuries-long foreign policy towards its neighbours in the Caribbean. First is the overly used truism attributed to the philosopher George Santayana that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, and secondly, the “Ugly American”, a catchphrase derived from a 1950s-era novel penned jointly by Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer.

That the policies and actions of the United States of America should be consistently scrutinized and often-times be subjected to the most devastating sort of criticism is no surprise given the highly moralistic tone of its national ethos as well as the expansive role it has come to play in the affairs of human kind.

It is the former colony of an empire, but has itself become something of an empire, vying for power and influence in world affairs with other empires or aggregate of nations to which American leaders have given various terms such as “Empire of Evil” and “Axis of Evil”.

As an “Empire of Liberty” and a chief proponent for the spread of the values of personal freedom and free enterprise, the United States has acted in ways which have stifled the very things it professes to be the paramount values upon which human beings should organise their societies.
Whether motivated by the expansion of its commercial interests or in the containment of the spread of communism, America has utilized or given support to acts of murder and terror, as well as to overt and secret wars.

At the heart of these endeavours, spanning the hemispheres of the globe, has been the Central Intelligence agency (C.I.A) which engineered numerous coups d’etat aimed at installing regimes which would act favourably to US interests. Among the most notorious were those involving the 1963 assassination of the South Vietnamese leader Ngo Din Diem and a decade earlier, the removal of Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran.

It sounded out military officers in the West African state of Ghana who in 1966 proceeded to overthrow the Soviet-friendly administration of Kwame Nkrumah. The agency did not remain idle in Latin America where amongst many endeavours it was at the centre of the successful effort to destabilize and overthrow the democratically elected Marxist government of Chile led by Salvador Allende, and of course, it was active in the European Cold War theatre where it gave sustenance to Italian fascist groups which carried out a number of terrorist acts from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.

The object of these operations was to create what was termed La Strategia della tensione, the fostering an atmosphere of fear, confusion and seeming chaos out of which the populace would make increasing demands for an authoritarian, right wing government to bring order and protect the society from a ‘communist takeover.’

Von Tunzlemann limits her focus to American efforts designed to forestall the spread of communism in the Caribbean, centring her narrative on the largest Islands: Cuba and Hispaniola, which is composed of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

She starts off by giving a concise history of these Caribbean countries while linking each to their respective but similar relationships with their larger neighbour to the north. These parallel histories are not to be read by the fainthearted given as Von Tunzelmann reminds is the Caribbean’s brutal history rooted in “genocide, slavery, imperialism and piracy.”

What is most striking about the chronologies as they unfold is the perennial corrupting of the avowed aim of successive American governments to help create the conditions for the establishment of democratic government and free enterprise in these and other nations of the Americas.

But like a seemingly ineradicably flaw, the diplomats, the politicians and the spies continued to make many choices, which led to the perpetuation of despotic and corrupt regimes and the resulting stultification of socially progressive change.

These wrong turns inevitably led to anti-American sentiment often expressed via the term Yanqui Imperialism. It also had disastrous consequences in regard to Cuba and the missed opportunities which could have played a part in influencing the direction of the post-revolutionary government led by Fidel Castro.

The stories of Presidents who started off with stated best intentions, but who ended up pursuing short-sighted and reactionary policies are recapitulated. For instance, Woodrow Wilson’s desire that “material interests must never be made superior to human liberty” along with his pledge not to “seek one additional foot of territory by conquest” did not prevent him from eventually indulging in what could be termed ‘moral imperialism’ when it came to his neighbours. Under his stewardship, Haiti was invaded by US marines and occupied for a lengthy period of time.

Again, John F. Kennedy’s imaginative Alliance For Progress which set the target for the alleviating of poverty and social inequality in the southern Americas ended in failure as the perceived threat of communist influence led for instance to the stifling of a democratic alliance among political parties of the Dominican Republic in favour of a military government, the toleration of the morally degenerate regime of Haiti and the aforementioned missed opportunities in developing a constructive and mutually beneficial relationship with Castro’s Cuba.

It was this almost irrational fear of the spread of the perceived ‘Bolshevik bacillus’ which led to the unintended perpetuation of the murderous regimes of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and Francois Duvalier in Haiti.

Von Tunzelmann’s pithy dissections of these dictators are masterful and in this context she relates the cynical manipulations employed by them in successfully soliciting financial aid and support under the pretext of fighting communism.

Both men went so far as to invent communist parties. On assuming power, it had been the unabashed aim of Duvalier that Haiti would become the ‘spoiled child’ of the United States and like his Dominican counterpart, he milked what he could out of the Americans by playing up to their fear of communist encroachment.

The propping up of these malodorous governments, a brand of Yankee-style Realpolitik was an unsettling but recurring feature of United States policy that had roots in the era pre-dating the challenge of offered by Soviet and Chinese communism when the United States under the guidance of the Monroe Doctrine, determined to resist the re-establishment of military or commercial influence of the old colonial powers from Europe.

The ‘He-may-be-a-sonafabitch-but-he’s-our-sonafabitch’ syndrome, an amoral and self-conscious justification in the apparent exercise of political pragmatism, continued to hold sway for long and remain intact despite the ostensible expurgations posited in the 1980s by Jean Kirkpatrick’s famous distinction between the support of regimes which were ‘totalitarian’ on the one hand and ‘authoritarian’ on the other.

Within the wider story are illuminating mini-biographies of the major players including the Castro brothers, Che Guevara, Nikita Khruschev and the Kennedy brothers: The evolving position of Fidel Castro from having been primarily a Cuban nationalist to his embrace of Marxism and an alliance with the Soviet Union.

Also, Bobby Kennedy’s transformation from strident anti-communist hawk to a ‘softer’, more enlightened position in terms of his understanding of the roots of poverty in Latin America and by extension his taking up of the cause of the downtrodden minorities of his country, is persuasively presented.

She also charts the improbable but radical metamorphosis of Francisco Caamano, the son of one of Trujillo’s generals from die hard rightist to figurehead of a democratic movement who finally became a Cuban-trained guerrilla and was martyred in the process of attempting to overthrow the military regime installed by the Americans after it had snuffed out the burgeoning democratic coalition which was forming after the fall of the Trujillo regime.

Conceptually, there are parallels between Red Heat and Stephen Kinzer’s All The Shah’s Men, in which Kinzer took to task American policy in Iran and how its bungling had sowed the roots of the anti-Americanism which persists in that region.

Similarly, what Von Tunzlemann makes plain through the succession of events leading up to the Cold War-era, is that by its actions in the Caribbean nations (as well as in Latin America), the United States established a template for intervening in other lands, using methods which it applied and continues to apply in the wider theatre of world politics.

This, as the author deftly shows, has not been without significant cost to the prestige and standing of America.

Adeyinka Makinde (2011)

John

'One of the most ridiculous things that has occurred in the history of the United States.'

This was how, looking back at the incident, Fidel Castro described the abortive invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in March 1961, planned and funded by Jack Kennedy and his officials in an attempt to topple a revolutionary government that was still little more than two years old. It was certainly ridiculous, leading to Kennedy's temporary humiliation, but was only one of multiple examples of US blundering, that occurred throughout the period covered by the book 'Red Heat'.

In retrospect, it seems almost incredible that successive US governments were so obsessed with the expansionary aims of the Soviet Union that they pursued devastatingly incompetent and counterproductive foreign policies in neighbouring Latin America, that was so remote from the Soviet Union and where its influence was much more limited than in other parts of the world. The policies were not only self-defeating but put the US on the wrong side of many progressive movements that might have ameliorated the poverty suffered by most Latin Americans at the time. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the Caribbean, which arguably suffered even more from US incompetence than the other obvious regional candidate for this distinction, the countries of Central America. The case is ably argued by Alex von Tunzelmann, not a known expert on the region’s politics, but one who exhaustively scans and details the effects of US policy on (particularly) the nations of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, over the 1950s and 1960s, the period when the cold war was at its most intense.

The broad facts are well known. The region had two of the worst and longest-standing dictatorships in the Americas, those of Duvalier in Haiti and Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. Both enjoyed varying support from the US. Sometimes they would lose favour after some particularly horrendous feat of repression, but almost invariably their regular cruelty, especially in Duvalier's case against his fellow blacks, was ignored. Not only this, but whenever possible alternatives to these despots presented themselves, the dictators successfully rolled out their pathetic arguments that, by repressing opponents, they were stemming the tide of communism that was lapping at their shores.

The source of this tide was, of course, Castro's Cuba. But again, von Tunzelmann shows how Castro might well have looked for the long-term support of the US had he not been rebuffed soon after the revolution in 1959. Also, of course, while the 1962 missile crisis provided the excuse for continued anti-Castro policies, they had begun much earlier. While the ridiculous Bay of Pigs invasion is the best known intervention, there were many more attacks through the long-running CIA operation known as 'Operation Mongoose'. However, they had little effect on Castro other than to keep him in a state of high alert and provide him with plentiful (and demonstrably truthful) anti-US propaganda as he was able to point to the bombs planted in factories or the bridges destroyed.

It is hardly surprising if this hostility to the US on Cuba's part continues today, given the many devastating bomb attacks carried out, often not against political or military targets but against ordinary Cubans or tourists. The worst of these was the planting of two bombs on a Cuban airliner which killed 78 people in 1976, and which at the time was the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out on a civilian aircraft. But as recently as 1997 six bombs exploded in Havana hotels, killing one Italian tourist. When Cuba tried to tackle the dangerous terrorism of the anti-Castro Cubans in Miami in 1998, the agents who successfully uncovered their plots were themselves imprisoned on trumped-up charges in a Florida court, while the real culprits went free. (I write this in Cuba, where the campaign for repatriation of the 'Cuban Five' continues, even though one, Rene Gonzalez, is now home. The others languish in US prisons.)

Perhaps the most disastrous effect of the distorting lens through which the US views it neighbours is its consequent inability to understand or even recognise the existence of genuine support for governments or political parties that promote reforms which favour the poor, and which the US then brands as communist. The most recent example is the Chavez/Maduro governments in Venezuela, who have won repeated clean elections and referendums, the latest of which (in April this year) the US has still to recognise. Equally, looking back to 1959, there is no doubt that Castro had widespread support in Cuba after he displaced the dictator Fulgencio Batista, and even if support has fallen over the 55 years there are few Cubans today who denounce either Fidel or Raul personally, even in private conversation, whatever their reservations about the current government more generally.

Tunzelmann says that for many ordinary Cubans, race equality, class equality, public order and a meal on the table at the end of the day felt like meaningful liberation in 1959. Freedom was the freedom from being shot in the street. As for the lack of a free press, as one ordinary Cuban quoted in the book says, 'how could we miss that when we never had it anyway?' – and the same might be said for free elections.

Most of those who hate the Cuban government most vociferously are no longer in Cuba, of course, and in many cases haven't been there for several years. But from their Miami base they continue to have a disproportionate influence on US policy. Why, over half a century, has Cuba been the uniquely terrible government that has justified an economic blockade that is so all-embracing that it affects even non-US firms that trade there, when truly despotic regimes like those in Haiti and the Dominican Republic were only ever blockaded briefly and sporadically? Further, they usually enjoyed massive US investment (even, in Haiti's case, investment that was known to the CIA to be passing directly into Duvalier's personal bank accounts).

Those brought up to think that Castro is a murderer ought to read Tunzelmann's account of the torture chambers in both neighbouring countries. While Castro's government carried out summary executions of counter-revolutionaries (estimated by Amnesty International at 237 by 1987), Duvalier and Trujillo not only ordered thousands of murders, but often watched their victims being horribly tortured or even did it themselves. Duvalier's death count alone is estimated at between 30,000 and 60,000, with several hundred of those being killed by him personally. Baby Doc Duvalier succeeded his father Papa Doc in an 'election' in 1971 which he won by 2,391,916 votes to zero. The result was nevertheless recognised by the United States. When he was deposed in 1986, the personal fortunes held by him and his mother totalled $1.6 billion. Haiti was and remains the western hemisphere's poorest country.

Towards the end of the book, Tunzelmann notes that, in the Dominican Republic, even after Trujillo had long been assassinated, in a subsequent election the US backed a right-wing Trujillo associate. During the campaign he was thought to have murdered 3,000 opposition supporters. His opponent, a mild leftist, was so scared he conducted his own campaign only by radio. Once elected, the US's favourite responded by opening the economy to US companies in tax-free zones. Many of his opponents fled to Cuba and became revolutionaries. Does that represent intelligent foreign policy on the United States' part?

Tunzelmann fascinatingly points out the shift in attitude experienced by Bobby Kennedy after his brother was killed, when the accession of Lyndon Johnson to the presidency marginalised his political influence until he began his own campaign to become Johnson's successor. Whether, had he become president, US policies might really have changed is a moot point, and a question to which we cannot know the answer. But the younger Kennedy made it is business to tour Latin America and see the real circumstances behind its political struggles. In a Lima slum he had a sort of epiphany, not unlike Che Guevara's on his legendary motorcycle journey through the length of South America, that had occurred 13 years earlier. Seeing the disgusting living conditions, Kennedy asked a colleague whether if he had to endure them he wouldn't be tempted to become a communist himself - and then added, 'I think I would'.

David Canford

If you enjoy modern history, I recommend this book to you which shows how we don’t learn from history and pursue policies that make situations worse not better. An account of the USA’s relations with Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, it demonstrates that although the USA denounces empire building it acts like an empire itself exercising huge control over the countries in its ‘backyard’. Most of the book covers the era from 1950 to 1970.
Paranoid about communist takeovers in Latin America, the USA supported with finance and military backing the regimes of Duvalier in Haiti and Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, both of whom tortured and murdered countless thousands, and did its utmost to destroy Castro and his regime, driving him into the arms of the Soviets. Although it suited American politicians to portray Castro as a monster, he was a saint compared to the dictators the USA supported in the other two countries, and the man brought healthcare and education to the entire population which neither Duvalier nor Trujillo did. Instead, they diverted American aid to build huge personal fortunes.
Russia had its Iron Curtain forcing Eastern European states to embrace communism. The USA imposed its own curtain in Latin America. While preaching democracy, the USA didn’t allow and hasn’t since allowed Latin Americans ( for example in Nicaragua, Chile, and most recently Bolivia where it supported a coup to eject the democratically elected President ) to determine their own destiny if they vote for left of centre governments. And the cycle of violence, corruption and poverty in those countries continues driving many towards the American border to escape it, perhaps the ultimate irony of American policy.
The book starts with the world’s only successful slave revolution when the slaves of Haiti threw out their French colonial masters. Haiti could have prospered but France demanded millions in compensation at punitive rates of interest and blockaded the country. Haiti didn’t finish paying the debt until the 1940s and was ruined by the cost. America adopted a similar policy 150 years later with its embargo of Cuba, keeping the country poor because it wouldn’t conform.
My main disappointment with the book was that it ends rather abruptly about 1970 even though the Cold War continued until 1990 so you’re left wondering what happened in the three countries in those years and indeed since.
The book makes you realise that whilst the Russians forced their will on other countries, the West did likewise. And both continue to do so now.

Robert

If you did not grow up during the height of the Cold War of the 1950s-1960s, rehearsing for nuclear Armageddon, or read every John Le Carre spy novel in First Editions, this tale of Cold War rivalry, conspiracy, confusion, and failure in the Caribbean (and Central and South America) may seem hard to believe. However, author Alex von Tunzelmann has delivered on the title’s promise of conspiracy and murder in the Caribbean. The result is an interesting work for the general reader and one that scholars will need to consider in future works on the subject.
For years, authors have recounted these stories in accordance with the “print the legend” prescript of newspaper editor Maxwell Scott from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”. “Red Heat” presents the story of how again and again, the Cold War rivalry between the US and the USSR led both to make decisions that would undercut democracy and its critical institutions in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and elsewhere in Central and South America. While Moscow and particularly Washington bear great responsibility for this, von Tunzelmann includes the contributions to this tale of the Duvaliers, the Trujillos, the Castros and other residents of these Caribbean nations.
The author presents these intertwining stories in a roughly chronological narrative, with some diversions as she provides some backstory with details that enhance the reader’s understanding of events and personalities. Her prose is both energetic and reflective of a passion that is almost but not quite overwhelming at times. The text is supported by some 40 pages of endnotes providing additional details as well as identifying her sources. There is also an almost eight page long “selected bibliography” of source material.

Mac McCormick III

Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean is a great read on the Cold War in the Caribbean. In it, Von Tunzelmann looks at US foreign policy in regards to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. She offers a brief history of how each country got to where they were at the beginning of the Cold War then details the changes (and attempted changes) in governments and the dictatorships in each and the US government’s relationship with them. Conservatives may not take a liking to this book, but it seems a balanced take on our missteps in supporting dictatorships in the Caribbean as anti-communist measures and failures in how we our relationship with Cuba and Castro. Additionally, she developed the personalities of the relevant Caribbean leaders, giving insight into their decision making. If you’re interested in learning more about the “fight against communism” close to home during the Cold War and Vietnam era, Red Heat is an excellent choice. It is not only well researched and informative, it’s captivating. Once you get started reading, you won’t want to put it down.

Mike

This is a very well written non-fictional account of the Cold War in the Caribbean. Specifically it is a detailed account of the politics in Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. No one comes out looking good. In many cases it is a a story of missed opportunities, inflated egos, and disregard of the common man.

Eisenhower and Nixon have come off poorly in most recent histories and nothing in the book is a surprise in their accounts. Left leaning Americans may be surprised to see how Fidel Castro pushed for nuclear war between Cuba and the United States, and the type of rabid warmongering politicians that Jack and Bobby Kennedy were. If you are a fan of these three or Che Guevara after reading this book, you must have skimmed it.

My only disagreement with the author is her rehabilitation of Bobby Kennedy in the weeks prior to his assassination with very little or no supporting information. It is one of the few places in the book that lacked supporting information and was almost an afterthought. I find that his disgraceful behavior in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations do not indicate that he would have made a good president in the long run.

Harry Foster

Enjoyed reading this history of the Cold War in the Caribbean, which puts the familiar story of the Cuban Revolution and the Missile Crisis in context of events in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which in this era were characterised by cruel, corrupt dictatorships that generally recieved the full support of the United States in the name of anti-communism.

Criticism of the foreign policy which led the US to back such regimes is the main point of the book, though the author seems reluctant to explicitly criticise many of the acts of imperialism and terrorism that are detailed throughout, and I have a hard time agreeing with the conclusion that the US was 'well intentioned' in its policy but simply took it too far. Well-written and engaging though, and details some important and tragic history of Haiti and the Dominican Republic that are not often told.

Jose

I gave this book five stars because myself for being from the Caribbean island Dominican Republic and I had live part of the Cold War in the Dominican Republic and seen young lefties militants of communists of differents tendency been disappearing in jail , tortured , during those years of repression during the regimes of Trujillo and after twelves years of Joaquin Balaguer . Was very sad for all those young generation that believe in an ideal of better distribution of the means of production . In general this book is well written for its historical context in it , showing trues that had been keep in files for years. Is very enjoyable to read it .

Asil Hindi

A well-written, excellent account of the four cornered story of the cold war relations between the US, Cuba, Dominican Republic and Haiti.
The author sets the stage very clearly describing the foreign relations in the Craibean in 19th century to the early 20th. Of course, much of the book has to do with Cuba.
CIA working with the Mafia on assassination attempts and discussions of faked terror attacks just to blame it on Cuba...tricks that come through in this read. Also, their support for dictatorships in Haiti and DR.
This book is a good introduction to the politics of the steamy region, utterly fascinating from the beginning to the end.

Shariq Chishti

A very detailed, well written and colourful account of the secret war the US waged in Latin America specially in the Caribbeans. Any hope of democracy was crushed by American war on communism even if there was hardly any chance of communist revolution in the respective countries. The book also cover important and interesting personalities like the Kennedy Brothers, Eisenhower, Nixon, the Castro Brothers, Che Guevara, Trujillo, Duvalier and Khrushchev amongst others.

Katy Owen

Alex von Tunzelmann provides a beautiful narrative weaving together the mid-twentieth century political history of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic with the interventions of the United States. A well- crafted account of the strength of US paranoia over communism and how that linked to the revolution, violence and ideologies of these two Caribbean islands.

Charles Fried

This is an exceptionally readable history of American involvement in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This represents a tragic, misguided and horrifically shameful part of our history that tends to be ignored, although that willful ignorance is to our peril as more recent "adventures" in Vietnam or Iraq have demonstrated. This is the second terrific book I've read by this author.

Nick Harriss

While I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as the author's "Blood & Sand" and "Indian Summer", it was still a excellent book. Although headlined as being predominantly about Cuba/US relations during the Cold War, I personally found the sections on Haiti to be the most interesting - it was a country whose history I had only a modest grasp prior to this book, and the commentary was excellent.

Matt Smith

A great read on the politics of the Caribbean during the 1950 - 70's and beyond.

Gave me a deep understanding of the history of the relationship between America, Cuba, Haiti, Dominica etc and the dictators the US chose to support while persecuting socialist nations

Amish Kamat

Good read but those who like to read stories, this may not be the perfect choice!

Joel Mendez

Great perspective on the Cold War from Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba. This is more than just the Bay of Pigs.

Kieran Bennett

An absurd tale, and unfortunately for the people of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, true.

Title	:	Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean
Author	:	Alex von Tunzelmann
Rating	:
ISBN	:	0805090673
ISBN-10	:	9780805090673
Language	:	English
Format Type	:	Hardcover
Number of Pages	:	464
Publication	:	First published March 29, 2011

Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean by Alex von Tunzelmann

Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean Reviews

Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean Reviews

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