AfroMarxist | Aleksandr Alekseev Interview (1986) @AfroMarxist | Uploaded August 2019 | Updated October 2024, 5 hours ago.
Aleksandr Alekseev was the Soviet ambassador to Cuba from 1962-1968. In the interview he describes Cuba during the Cuban Revolution (1953-1959), and how taken he was by the revolutionary spirit and the overwhelming support for Fidel Castro. He explains his role in Cuba at the time, not as an ambassador, but as an observer, and details meetings he had about the revolution with Castro and Che Guevara, as well as Ernest Hemingway. In his view, American propaganda was a significant cause of the rift between the U.S. and Cuba, exacerbated by a series of American actions, including the explosion of the French Ship Le Gouvre, refusing to sell Cuba oil, blocking the import of Cuban sugar, and not least the Bay of Pigs (Playa-Giron) operation. All of these events, in his opinion, encouraged pro-Soviet feelings in Cuba. He describes when it became clear that the U.S. would try to dismantle the Cuban revolution at any cost, causing Cuban and Soviet leaders to begin working together to save the revolution, including supplying Cuba with missiles. He goes on to explain Cuban attitudes after Kennedy's quarantine of Cuba. He states that Castro read and contributed to all of the exchanges between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the 1962 missile crisis, and that he played an absolutely independent role at key points in the crisis. He describes Castro's well-known five points, which were not all addressed in the compromise reached between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and Castro's distrust of American guarantees. Mr. Alekseev offers an assessment of the resolution of the crisis, which he attributes mainly to the resort by both leaders to common sense and compromise. He then describes the mood of Cubans and Russians on the island in the aftermath, which he believes was far less anxious than in Moscow or Washington because we could not imagine that the impossible would happen ... a way out will be found
Credit To : WGH Open Vault
Aleksandr Alekseev was the Soviet ambassador to Cuba from 1962-1968. In the interview he describes Cuba during the Cuban Revolution (1953-1959), and how taken he was by the revolutionary spirit and the overwhelming support for Fidel Castro. He explains his role in Cuba at the time, not as an ambassador, but as an observer, and details meetings he had about the revolution with Castro and Che Guevara, as well as Ernest Hemingway. In his view, American propaganda was a significant cause of the rift between the U.S. and Cuba, exacerbated by a series of American actions, including the explosion of the French Ship Le Gouvre, refusing to sell Cuba oil, blocking the import of Cuban sugar, and not least the Bay of Pigs (Playa-Giron) operation. All of these events, in his opinion, encouraged pro-Soviet feelings in Cuba. He describes when it became clear that the U.S. would try to dismantle the Cuban revolution at any cost, causing Cuban and Soviet leaders to begin working together to save the revolution, including supplying Cuba with missiles. He goes on to explain Cuban attitudes after Kennedy's quarantine of Cuba. He states that Castro read and contributed to all of the exchanges between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the 1962 missile crisis, and that he played an absolutely independent role at key points in the crisis. He describes Castro's well-known five points, which were not all addressed in the compromise reached between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and Castro's distrust of American guarantees. Mr. Alekseev offers an assessment of the resolution of the crisis, which he attributes mainly to the resort by both leaders to common sense and compromise. He then describes the mood of Cubans and Russians on the island in the aftermath, which he believes was far less anxious than in Moscow or Washington because we could not imagine that the impossible would happen ... a way out will be found
Credit To : WGH Open Vault
