In July 1980, Cuban president Fidel Castro sent a telegram to the government of Nicaragua. He was congratulating the Sandinista party on the one year anniversary of their revolution against the Somoza dictatorship. The telegram was obtained by the United States governments and declassified after it was examined by the U.S. State Department. With the ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Cuba, there was expected hesitation in Washington over Castro’s support for another left-wing government. The State Department’s hesitation is subtextually evident in the telegram, along with the more seemingly unconcerned statements officially recorded.
Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution dates back to 1934, when leftist guerilla Augusto Sandino was assassinated by National Guard forces led by Anastasio Somoza. Sandino had been fighting against the corruption of the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan government. After his execution, Samoza seized power in 1936 and his family ruled the country as a dictatorship for forty-three years. This reign was not uncontested, however; the Sandinista party (FSLN) formed in the early 1960s and achieved the Somoza overthrow in 1979.
In his telegram to the Sandinistas, Fidel Castro congratulations the revolution while evoking the name of Sandino and the founder of the FLSN, Carlos Fonseco Amador: “We share with all our hearts, the happiness of the Nicaraguan people who will commemorate the first anniversary of its historic revolutionary victory… These are signs of a brilliant future of struggle and triumph for the glorious country of Sandino and of Carlos Fonseca Amador.” Not only is Castro outwardly praising the revolution but subtextually fostering a friendship with the like-minded government. The Cuban leader had led his own revolution in 1959 against a U.S.-backed dictatorship; the Sandinistas were therefore important allies in the “progressive movement and of world revolution”.
The communication between Havana and Managua was consequently seen as a threat to the United States; Cuba remained a powerful communist state in the western hemisphere in the Cold War era. Castro’s telegram was therefore analyzed for any potential anti-American sentiments by the U.S. State Department. The concluding comments by U.S officials, however, admit to reading no such feelings, either explicit or implied: “This letter sets a moderate, positive tone appropriate to the communications of a chief of state. Castro makes no mention, either directly or indirectly of Anti-American themes repeated continually by his propaganda machine.”
Nonetheless, additional comments reveal a suspicious tone: “It is clear, however, that he [Castro] expects Nicaragua to continue in the path it is now on and he implies that he will help keep it there.”
While the U.S. diplomatically acknowledges there is nothing to fear with one country simply congratulating another, there remains a subtextual current of caution. American relations with Cuba were tense and the Sandinistas had overthrown the Somoza government, whom the U.S. supported as an anti-communist ally. Throughout the 1980s, the U.S. would support the counter-revolutionary Contras in an effort to depose the leftist Sandinistas, who eventually relinquished power after losing the 1990 election. Castro would remain in power and his revolutionary government continues to this day.
VINCENT S. HANNAM 