 (July 29) Voices from the other side: An oral history of Terrorism against Cuba is reviewed today by Pluto Press, authored by Keith Bolender, who will be on a book signing tour of the United Kingdom next September. In the introduction to this book, academic Noam Chomsky details the history of US governments' violent and often bizarre reactions to its small but defiant neighbor.
The UK Cuba Solidarity Campaign was given permission to reproduce the first and final paragraphs of the 3,000 word article of professor Chomsky, which you will find reproduced below.
"Perhaps the most striking feature of Washington's war against Cuba since it dared to liberate itself at last in 1959 has been the frenzy with which it has been waged. Kennedy's Bay of Pigs invasion soon after taking office was authorized in an atmosphere of "hysteria," Defense Secretary Robert McNamara later testified before the Senate's Church Committee. At the first cabinet meeting after the failed invasion, the atmosphere was "almost savage," Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles reported, describing "an almost frantic reaction for an action program." The core component of the "action program" was a major terrorist war. Robert Kennedy, who was assigned the task of coordinating the massive campaign of state-directed international terrorism, repeatedly declared that overthrowing the government of Cuba was "the top priority of the United States Government's all else is secondary's no time, money, effort, or manpower is to be spared."
...The "virtual colony" gained authentic liberation in 1959, apart from its Eastern region. And within months the assault began, using the weapons of violence and economic strangulation to punish the inhabitants of "that infernal little Republic" who had so angered the racist expansionist Theodore Roosevelt "that I would like to wipe its people off the face of the earth," he declared in fury as they continued to rebel, not recognizing that we had set them free. And to this day refusing to comprehend that their role is to serve the master, not to play at independence.
The valuable study that follows in this book permits us to hear the voices of the victims of the international terrorism launched by the Kennedy brothers' for the first time, a remarkable comment on the reigning culture of imperialism in the US and its Western allies," concludes Chomsky.
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