“A foreign reporter — preferably American — was much more valuable to us at that time (1957) than any military victory,” wrote Ernesto “Che” Guevara in his diaries. “Much more valuable than rural recruits for our guerrilla force, were American media recruits to export our propaganda.”

“We cannot for a second abandon propaganda. Propaganda is vital — propaganda is the heart of all struggles,” said Fidel Castro in a letter to a revolutionary colleague in 1954.

“In all essentials Castro’s battle for Cuba was a public relations campaign fought in New York and Washington.” — British historian Hugh Thomas

che_guevara_fidel_castro

Fought and handily won, I might add.

Fidel Castro has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to restore Cuba’s Constitution…this amounts to a new deal for Cuba, radical, democratic and therefore anti-Communist. (Herbert Matthews, New York Times Feb. 1957.)

This is not a Communist Revolution in any sense of the term. Fidel Castro is not only not a Communist, he is decidedly anti-Communist. (Herbert Matthews, New York Times, July 1959)

I have never been a communist. It gives me great pain to be called a Communist (Che Guevara,quoted without rebuttal or snarks by the New York Times January 4, 1959.)

“One Thousand Killed in 5 days of Fierce Street Fighting,” blared a New York Times headline on Jan 4, 1959 about the “battle” of Santa Clara in central Cuba where Ernesto “Che” Guevara earned much of his enduring martial mystique. “Commander Che Guevara appealed to Batista troops for a truce to clear the streets of casualties,” continues the Times article. “Guevara turned the tide in this bloody battle and whipped a Batista force of 3,000 men.”

A year later, Che’s own diaries revealed that his forces suffered exactly one casualty during this Caribbean Stalingrad, as depicted by the Times.  British historian Sir Hugh Thomas, author of a 1700 page Cuban history and who initially vied with Herbert Matthews as a Castro sycophant, claims a grand total of six casualties for this Caribbean Verdun. Your humble servant here interviewed several eye-witnesses (on both sides) to this “battle” and their consensus came to about five casualties total for this Caribbean Iwo Jima.

True to New York Times- form, during this “battle,” they didn’t have a reporter within 300 miles of Santa Clara.  Instead they relied on their trusty Cuban Castroite “correspondents.”

And true to Che Guevara-form, the genuine bloodbath in Santa Clara came a week later when his opponents (real and imagined) were utterly defenseless. That’s when Che set his goons to dragging men and boys from their homes and set his firing squads to work in triple shifts.  Nothing from the New York Times’ trusty correspondents on this, however.

firing-squad

A few months later Fidel and Che started Stalinizing Cuba in earnest, stealing private farms for conversion into Soviet-style Kolkhozes. And again the Times lent a publicity hand. “This promise of social justice brings a foretaste of human dignity for millions (of Cubans) who had little knowledge of it in Cuba’s former near-feudal economy,” read an editorial by Tad Szulc.

In fact:  Prior to Cuba’s  glorious liberation by Fidel and Che, the  average farm-wage in “near-feudal” Cuba  was higher than in France, Belgium, Denmark, or West Germany. According to the Geneva-based International Labor Organization, the average daily wage for an agricultural worker in Cuba in 1958 was $3. The average daily wage in France at the time was $2.73; in Belgium $2.70; in Denmark $2.74; in West Germany $2.73; and in the U.S. $4.06. Also, far from huge latifundia dominating the agricultural landscape, the average Cuban farm in 1958 was actually smaller than the average farm in the U.S.: 140 acres in Cuba vs. 195 acres in the U.S. In 1958 Cuba, a nation of 6.2 million people, had 159,958 farms — 11,000 of which were tobacco farms. Only 34 percent of the Cuban population was rural.

By the time of the New York Times editorial, Soviet advisers who had earned their spurs during the 1930’s in the Ukraine, were already directing Castro and Che’s “Institute of Agrarian Reform.”  As the unmistakable Stalinist pattern sank in, a major rebellion broke out in the Cuban countryside. According to Raul Castro (Fidel’s brother and the head of Cuba’s military), the rebellion involved 179 different “counterrevolutionary and bandit groups.”

This genuine guerrilla war lasted from 1960 to 1966 on America’s very doorstep. It took the Castroites six years, tens of thousands of troops, scores of Russian advisors, squadrons of Soviet tanks, helicopters, flame throwers, and a massive and brutal “re-location” campaign where thousands of rural families were uprooted at gunpoint and relocated to concentration camps at the very western tip of Cuba, to finally crush the rebellion. You will search the Times (indeed, the entire worldwide media), in utter, utter vain for the slightest mention of this islandwide insurrection against Stalinism and the horrific repression by the Che-directed and Soviet-mentored Castroite forces.

Half a century later, the Times is still at it. A recent book by the New York Times‘ own Anthony di Palma about correspondent Hebert Matthews describes the spine-chilling, nail-biting, utterly terrifying journey Matthews endured in order to interview Castro in 1957. Their ace Latin American reporter, we’re given to understand, while en route to Castro’s secret camp in Cuba’s wilderness, narrowly and cunningly and courageously evaded the diabolical and “U.S. backed”  Batista’s military and Gestapo.

In fact, as any “gallant crusader for the truth” (Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s term for its students) can “uncover” with one Google search, the various trips by the U.S. media throng to Castro’s “secret” camp were actually arranged by the U.S. ambassador to Cuba with Batista’s own help! During Congressional hearings, U.S. ambassador to Cuba, Arthur Gardner, testified to this under oath.

At one point in 1958, in order to accommodate the media multitudes, Castro’s camp actually had a big, bright sign reading: PRESS HUT. By that time reporters (male and female, young and decrepit) from Look to Life to Boy’s Life had all made the terrifying trek to obtain an interview with the Cuban George Washington/Robin Hood/St. Thomas Aquinas/Davy Crockett.

walter_duranty

In the annals of journalistic swinishness, the New York Times’ Walter Duranty’s had plenty, plenty of company—and within the very offices of the New York Times.