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Government). The treaty specified that the Vietcong was to have equal recognition with the
South Vietnamese capital of Saigon. Thieu agreed to sign after Nixon and Kissinger promised
that the U.S. would “respond vigorously” to any Communist violations of the agreement.
The cease-fire didn’t hold, and after the American pullout, which left over $5 billion worth of
military equipment, the communists were given a free hand in Southeast Asia. On April 30,
1975, the government of South Vietnam fell to the communist regime, and on July 2, 1976, the
country of Vietnam was officially unified as a Communist state.
It is estimated that 57,000 Americans died during the Vietnam conflict.
THE CUBAN COVER-UP
Fulgencio Batista, in 1934, had overthrown the government of Cuba, which hampered the
social reform that had been begun by four separate Presidents. In 1952, he established a
dictatorship. Fidel Castro, who had become a communist in 1947, during his second year in law
school; and Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto Guevara, rebuilt the guerrilla forces that Castro
had used in an unsuccessful revolt in 1953 (in which Castro had been captured and arrested, but
later paroled).
With financial backing from Russia, Castro bribed many military leaders. He got a
substantial amount of support from the intellectual and working class, who knew nothing of his
communist intentions.
In April, 1957, Herbert L. Matthews, a correspondent for the New York Times and CFR
member, interviewed Castro at his mountain retreat, for three successive front page articles. He
compared Castro to Lincoln, and presented him as a “peasant patriot,” “a strong anticommunist,”
a “Robin Hood,” and a “defender of the people.” Earlier, in a February 25, 1957
article, Matthews reported: “There is no communism to speak of in Fidel Castro’s movement.”
On CBS-TV, Edward R. Murrow portrayed him as a national hero. President Kennedy in a
speech compared him to South American patriot Simon Bolivar. Ed Sullivan interviewed Castro
for a film clip, which was seen by about 30 million people, in which he said: “The people of the
United States have great admiration for you and your men because you are in the real American
spirit of George Washington.” He retracted the statement 18 months later, but it was too late.
In 1958, in an interview with Jules DuBois, Castro said: “I have never been nor am I a
Communist...” The American Ambassador to Cuba declared that Batista was no longer supported
by the American government, and that he should leave. Roy Rubottom, the Assistant Secretary
for Latin American Affairs, said in December, 1958: “There was no evidence of any organized
Communist elements within the Castro movement or that Senor Castro himself was under
Communist influence.” In April, 1959, Castro visited the U.S., and the State Department
welcomed him as a “distinguished leader.”
A member of the Intelligence section of the Cuban army hand-carried Castro’s dossier to
Washington in 1957, delivering it to Allen Dulles, head of the CIA, which revealed that Castro
was a Communist. Dulles ‘buried’ the file. In July, 1959, Major Pedro Diaz Lanz, of the Cuban
Air Force, toured the United States, and revealed that he had first-hand knowledge that Castro
was a Communist. This fact, for the most part, was kept out of the media. The truth of the matter,
was that the State Department was purposely covering up Castro’s communist connections, the
fact that his supporters were trained by Russia, and that he was carrying out a communist
revolution.