Summary of The William J. Casey Institute of the Center for Security Policy’s Symposia on Vital U.S. Security Interests in Cuba

Coral Gables and West Palm Beach, Florida
12 and 13 March 1998

In the wake of Pope John Paul II’s historic visit to Communist Cuba, the Center for Security
Policy’s William J. Casey Institute held two informative and exceedingly timely Symposia in south
Florida. The purpose: to discuss vital U.S. security interests in Cuba and to explore policy
prescriptions for normalizing relations with the Castro regime that are now being advanced with
increasing insistence.

The Casey Institute Symposia held on 12 and 13 March 1998 in Coral Gables and West Palm
Beach, respectively, however, offered powerful reasons why such recommendations
should be
rejected, lest Castro’s regime secure a new lease on life in political, economic and
moral
terms — and the abiding threats to the U.S. posed by that regime be actualized.

Between the Coral Gables event, held at the historic Biltmore Hotel, and the Symposium in
West
Palm Beach’s Governors Club the following day, roughly 150 people participated including: a
leading Member of Congress, Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL);
several former
senior American policy-makers; defectors and other refugees from Castro’s Cuba; representatives
of the Coast Guard in Miami and U.S. Southern Command; and a number of leading national and
local journalists.⁽¹⁾ (See the attached Lists of Participants
from Coral Gables and West Palm
Beach.)

The following pages summarize many of the important insights regarding the threats that
continue
to be posed by Castro’s totalitarian regime — threats to his own people, to their neighbors in the
United States and to other vital American interests. Where possible, edited versions of direct,
albeit unattributed, quotes from participants are provided; the passages not in quotation marks
paraphrase key points made during the Symposia.

While no effort was made to formalize a consensus, the clear sentiment of most of those
participating in these events was that, under present circumstances, were the United States to
liberalize trade or otherwise begin to normalize bilateral relations, the effect would be to:
legitimate Castro’s historic enmity toward this country; provide economic life support to his
government; and abandon those seeking its removal from power in favor of a democratic and
peaceable government subject to the rule of law.

The Nuclear Reactor Complex Abuilding at Juragua, Cuba

One of the most serious, if for the moment latent, threats posed by Cuba today
arises from
recently resumed construction of two Soviet-era nuclear reactors at Juragua, near the city of
Cienfuegos, Cuba. A discussion of the near-certainty that these reactors will, if allowed to be
brought on-line, result in nuclear accidents was led in both of the Symposia by the holder of the
William J. Casey Chair, Roger W. Robinson, Jr. Mr. Robinson served as
Senior Director of
International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council under President Reagan, and is
one of the pre-eminent American critics of Castro’s nuclear program. Importantly, his warnings
about the dangers posed by a potential Chernobyl-style catastrophe 180 miles upwind from the
U.S. mainland were endorsed by Pelayo Calante, a Cuban engineer who
worked on quality
control and assurance aspects of the Juragua complex for seven years prior to his defection.
Among the highlights of this section of the Casey Symposia were the following:

The Juragua Complex’s Fatal Flaws

Some of the reasons why this reactor complex is a Chernobyl-like disaster off our shores,
ready to
happen if it is completed and fueled, include the following:

“It is estimated on the part of defectors from Cuba who were actively working on the plant
itself in their nuclear industry that 60 percent of the Soviet/Russian-supplied materials
used
thus far in construction are defective. Even more disturbing, the critical welds
in the
cooling systems and other vital systems, of which there are at least 5,000 in the auxiliary
pumping units alone, it is estimated that some 15 percent of those wells are also
defective, due to a host of reasons.”

“Those defects became evident on x-rays that the Cubans themselves conducted, but
according
to these defectors, Cuban intelligence destroyed those x-rays, erased all of the
serial
numbers where they were placed in order to insure that the International Atomic Energy
Agency and other regulators that would come into the picture on the safety side, would have
no clue as to where they are and where repairs are needed.”

one defective weld in the United States takes down a
nuclear reactor

“In addition, the reactor dome cannot withstand anywhere near the over-pressures
that
would be involved in a nuclear accident of the meltdown variety like Three Mile Island.
There are many technical considerations here, but just to give you orders of magnitude, we
require 50 pounds- per-square-inch safeguards against these over-pressures. Cuba has built in
seven percent. That is obviously flawed on the face of it.”

“The Soviet VVER 440 reactor design is the same nuclear reactor of which there were four
in
East Germany. All were closed within days of the reunification of Germany, because of their
inherent dangers and flaws. NBC News reported that one of those reactors was near
meltdown at the time it was closed. In Bulgaria and Slovakia, the same reactor design had to
be shut instantly because obviously, it cannot hope to meet standard operating procedures as
we know them in the West.”

“The status of the nuclear facilities in Cuba are very poor. Conservation of the
nuclear
reactor and the other facilities is very bad.“

“The other thing is, that the training for the nuclear reactor operation was very
poor.
Much of it was done in Russia in a facility that was not similar to the nuclear reactor in Cuba.”

“When the construction was stopped in 1992, the reactor base and the other equipment were
exposed to the sea air, and corrosion is continuing in these reactors. And in the case if we put
this reactor now together with the other facility, the probability that there will be an
accident is almost 100 percent.“

For these and other technical reasons, this reactor complex cannot be repaired.
It would
have to be razed to the ground and started over with a Western design and, of course,
world-class safety standards in place.

Why Is Fidel Proceeding With This Dangerous Scheme?

“[The bottom line is that] this complex is absolutely required if Cuba is going to
make up
some 15 to 20 percent electricity shortfall on the island — a shortfall that must be
overcome
if Castro is to realize his hopes for new, direct foreign investment from our Canadian and West
European friends, as well as certain countries in Latin America. Obviously, you cannot expand
a tourism industry or build a robust mining industry if experiencing brown-outs and black-outs
several hours a day, which is the case today.”

“New life-support has been offered the Juragua reactor complex [which] began construction
in
1982. For a time, it moved along at a very brisk pace, with Cuba and Russia investing
some
$1.2 billion in that complex. To give you a sense of the scale of this
investment, remember
that Cuba’s total hard currency income today totals $1.7 billion. You get a sense why
the
Castro regime, not to mention Moscow, would be loathe to walk away from that gigantic
project.”

The Russians are anxious to sell nuclear reactors to others around the world. It is not
conducive to such sales to show themselves unable to bring on-line two of their power
plants.

Russia is releasing to Cuba a $350 million line of credit

“There are other reasons why Castro would proceed with this project despite the dangers.
It
is…a very potent distraction for the United States, a Cuban missile crisis without the
missiles.”

“What does it say about a government that would willfully proceed with a program that
would
just be a catastrophe for its own people? I suggest to you that, that indifference to the
welfare of the Cuban people is one of the greatest indictments against the Castro regime
and one of the reasons why we feel very strongly that there can be no deals with Castro.
There can be no life support extended to Castro. There can be no perpetuation — at least, at
our hands — of this regime and the tyranny that it entails.”

What is at Stake?

“Consider the findings of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, which
has done elaborate mapping in terms of what would happen if a radioactive plume emanated
from an accident in Cuba — an event that the General Accounting Office states
is a question
of when, not if:

the
summer east to west trade winds would carry radioactive pollutants over all
Florida and portions of Gulf States as far west as Texas in about four days.

could move the pollutants toward the east, possibly as
far north as Virginia and Washington, D.C. in about four days.

“In case of an accident, a nuclear accident and the people were irradiated, the Cuban
government will not make this public.”

What Can Be Done About the Cuban Nuclear Threat?

“Some urge us to negotiate with Castro to allow inspectors — U.S. inspectors and United
Nations inspectors and Organization of American States inspectors — to monitor whatever is
being done there until the facility is functioning. Will we accept that deal? My short
answer
is, “No deals.” This reactor complex cannot be made safe by any infusions of technical
support out of the United States or efforts in the safety categories from the United Nations.
That is a function of technical and construction-related reasons and reasons of design.”

We are not going
to be extorted by that kind of nuclear terror.

“In the next 90 days the Congress is going to be acting upon approximately $1
billion in
U.S. taxpayer aid flows to Russia. And I don’t think we had in mind that money being
sluiced to create a Chernobyl-like disaster 180 miles upwind from the American mainland.
We
need to make it clear to Moscow that, all 350 million of those dollars are coming off of
the $1 billion that they are seeking from U. S. taxpayers in the next 60 to 90 days on
Capitol Hill. One thing we can certainly do in this gathering is to come away with a new
conviction that that is simply not on. Moscow is not going to have it both ways.”

“I recommended that we impose or threaten import controls against any Western
supplier for the reactor scheme — France, Germany, Italy, Brazil and even the U.K. have
all
expressed interest in playing the role of suppliers. The bottom line is, that a choice has
to be
made. It’s going to be the Cuban market or the American market. But it can’t and
shouldn’t be both.”

“We have had naval blockades and the like before when our country was in clear
and
present danger of a nuclear threat from Cuba. I suggest to you, we are facing that clear
and present danger today.“

warn Moscow that they are not to fuel that
reactor

— prior
to that reactor being fueled and becoming a ‘dirty,’ as they say in the trade,
radioactive site — it’s F-117 time.

⁽²⁾

Status of Cuba’s Armed Forces

At both Symposia, Commander James McKenzie of the U.S. Coast Guard
led discussions of
the status and readiness of the Cuban military. In addition, several members of the U.S. Southern
Command participated in the 12 March session. While making clear the decline in the size and
readiness of Castro’s military, this discussion offered a more nuanced assessment of its residual
potential for trouble-making than some other recent estimates. href=”#N_3_”>⁽³⁾ Among its highlights were the
following:

Castro’s Unchanged Military Philosophy

“Looking at the philosophy of the Cuban armed forces over the past 38 years, one can see
that
Castro has repeatedly vowed that if the U.S. dares attack Cuba, that his military and supporters
would be ready to wage a scorched earth campaign. According to this strategy, the military [is
expected] to fight a highly mobile and sophisticated defensive war that takes advantage of the
island’s geography. Any type of invasion would be met with resistance from all of the people,
again, a war of all the people — which Castro has frequently referred to — with the
result being
a bitter, costly, timely and deadly engagement. This wartime consciousness that Castro has
built among the people forces them to always be ready to repulse any aggression or violation
of Cuban sovereignty.”

“Castro has been for a long time trying to convince the military that the end of the
regime is the end of the armed forces. The end of the regime means that, many of the
officers will go to prison or will be executed or that kind of thing.”

“The philosophy and the doctrine that Fidel Castro has established, has been
practiced
for over 38 years and he has not backed away from it in the least bit.“

The Cuban Military’s Reduced Condition

“Cuban armed forces currently numbers around 150,000. That includes 75,000 conscripts.
Another 35,000 reserves receive instruction and training. So, you have a total of about
285,000 active duty and reservists. The armed forces budget for the Cuban armed forces totals
somewhere between $325 and $600 million, depending on what source you look at.”

“What that translates into is, limited food supplies for soldiers and sailors — which we have
seen as the military now grows a large percentage, if not all, of their food supply. We see
extremely limited fuel and lubricants and spare parts for equipment. That places an even
greater pressure on the need for hard currency.”

training and actual operations are limited to an as-necessary
basis.

“Lack of maintenance of their railways, lack of maintenance for the major
highways, the
major seaports falling into disrepair result in widespread deterioration and reduced
readiness to support a major military campaign.“

The Future of the Cuban Military

“The threat that returns with any improvement in the economy is a return of
economic
resources to the military budget and with that, an increased threat to the U.S. and the
regional neighbors in the Caribbean.“

“I think it’s important for the United States and for others to try to get information into
Cuba,
because if one looks at the role of the military and other transitions to democracy, whether in
Chile or in Spain or in Central America or in Poland, the military play a very important role in
the transition. They open the door to the negotiated settlements with the Church and with
other elements in civil society to permit a transition that is not bloody and one in which most of
the military remain in place.”

The Threat Posed by Russian/Cuban Electronic Espionage Operations in
Cuba

The Symposia also examined the danger posed by the massive Russian and Cuban
signals-intelligence facilities in the vicinity of Lourdes, Cuba. This huge
electronic-eavesdropping
complex involves some 28 square miles of radio dishes used to intercept telecommunications
throughout the Eastern United States — including the fax, e-mail and telephone transmissions of
U.S. businesses and government agencies alike. The following were among the most important
points made about the offensive character of such activities:

“All of our private conversations can be swept up by these sophisticated computer systems
at
Lourdes …. In 1996, an $85 million upgrade of Lourdes took place because of the
post-Soviet
degradation of Moscow’s overhead intelligence collection systems — affecting both their
imaging and eavesdropping capabilities — that has made the Russians increasingly
dependent on the Lourdes facility.“

“Our most secret battle plans for the Gulf War — including the ‘Hail Mary pass’ that
ultimately outflanked Saddam Hussein’s forces — had all been picked up by the Lourdes
facility and communicated to Moscow. They could have been passed on to Saddam
Hussein
by the man who was then Russia’s foreign intelligence chief, and is now its foreign minister, a
notorious thug by the name of Yevgeny Primakov.”

“Today, we have our men and women on the ground in the Persian Gulf and on our carriers
poised for attack if necessary to address another Saddam-induced crisis and remember, their
lines of communication are being monitored by Lourdes. Incredibly, the Clinton
Administration actually calls the Russian operation there ‘helpful’ since it allegedly
advances the verification of arms control agreements.” href=”#N_4_”>⁽⁴⁾

Following the Casey Symposia, the Miami Herald reported that the most
senior defector
from Soviet/Russian military intelligence, Col. Stanislav Lunev confirmed the extent to which
Lourdes collection assets permitted the penetration of even secret U.S. military communications
during Operation Desert Storm. Additional concerns have also been raised recently about the
inherent capacity of these assets to engage in information warfare attacks against the United
States.⁽⁵⁾

Castro’s Continuing Contribution to International Instability

The Cuban regime no longer enjoys the multi-billion dollar annual subsidies from Moscow
that
once enabled it to serve as the USSR’s Foreign Legion in Africa and Latin America and as a
proxy for the Kremlin in the subversion of democratic and other, pro-Western governments
throughout the Western Hemisphere. Participants in the Casey Symposia, however, noted that
Castro has, to some degree, offset this diminished revenue stream by allowing Cuba to be used as
a staging area for narco-trafficking under the protection and with the assistance of the Cuban
military. Several made reference to evidence that Castro was still involved in this Hemisphere’s
leftist insurgencies, as well as its drug cartels.

In this connection, one of the most influential Members of Congress with respect to U.S.
policy
toward Cuba, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, supplied a copy of an 18 November 1996 letter he and
two other congressional leaders on U.S.-Cuban issues — Reps. Dan Burton
(R-IN) and Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) — sent to Gen. Barry McCaffrey, President
Clinton’s Director of the
Office of Drug Control Policy. It states, in part:

Overwhelming evidence [including a number of cases cited in the letter] points
to ongoing involvement of the Castro dictatorship in narco-trafficking.

Another participant said: “Smuggling, drug trade, money laundering,
including
laundering through non-traceable capital market transactions and shady deals through
third countries produced the bulk of Castro’s financial muscle to support his repressive
apparatus.“

Two other observations from the Symposia bear mentioning in this connection:

“[In early March,] Castro-inspired leftist guerrillas inflicted heavy casualties on the army of
Colombia in order to derail the elections in that country.”

“The cultural violence continues to flow from Castro’s terrorist niche into Latin America and
the United States.”

Castro’s Capacity for Biological Warfare

At the West Palm Beach Symposium, Rep. Diaz-Balart challenged the notion that a so-called
“small and insignificant” island like Cuba could — under a ruthless dictator like Fidel Castro —
pose a threat to the United States. He expressed particular concern about Cuba’s suspected
biological weapons (BW) program. Particularly noteworthy was the following intervention by
Rep. Diaz-Balart:

existence of a cover up on the
biological weapons reality.

there is not to be made public any possible concern that could
affect the national security of the American people from Castro’s Cuba.
That is a policy of the Clinton Administration.

Other participants noted that the Castro regime certainly has the potential to field
fearsome
biological weapons. The technology involved is very well understood worldwide. And people,
like the Cubans, with long-standing relations with the Kremlin — which has acknowledged
maintaining an illegal BW program during the Cold War (and is suspected of continuing to do so)
— certainly had access to both the necessary technology and know-how to produce and deploy
biological weapons.⁽⁶⁾

Castro’s Brutal Tyranny

Critical perspective on the persistent malevolence of the Castro regime was provided by a
number
of participants in the two Casey Symposia who had personal experience with Fidel’s totalitarian
rule. Among these was José Basulto, President of Brothers to the
Rescue, who led an
impassioned discussion in the course of the 12 May meeting. Some of the highlights of the
relevant portions of both days’ proceedings include:

The Character of the Castro Regime

“[Since he came to power,] Castro has ruled by the reason of force, in place of the
force of
reason.“

“Repression in Cuba is state terrorism. It is perhaps the worst violation
of human rights,
physical and mental torture institutionalized since the very inception of the tyranny, to attempt
to uproot Cubans from their culture and beliefs and convert them into robots. Its objective is
to control the minds and souls of citizens and condition their behavior to act within the
parameters of the official doctrine, continuously re-interpreted and even contradicted by the
state to serve its own purposes.”

The Character of ‘Support’ for Castro’s Regime

“The people of South America or Latin America in general support the aspirations
of the
Cuban people. They know what it was like to live under Pinochet or under the
Argentinian
generals. They understand that the Cubans, like the Haitians, would also like to have some
basic human rights.”

The Latin American governments use
Cuba
as a political ploy to show their independence of the United States.

It should be noted, in addition, that at least some governments in the region are prompted to
lend support to Castro by their perception that his regime remains capable of supporting
subversive elements within their countries — in other words, a sort of protection
racket is
operating in Cuba today.

“More people have voted for [Reps.] Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, for Lincoln Diaz-Balart and for
Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in the last 40 years than have had the opportunity to
vote in Cuba for
anybody, because in Cuba, there are no real elections. In Cuba, there are no
candidates.
In Cuba, there’s no media.“

“Lamentably the moral problem of Cuba can be traced down to one issue, and that is
the lack
of legitimacy of the Cuban regime. There is a crisis of legitimacy in Cuba. Leaders
must
have authority to govern; Castro has power but not authority or legitimacy.”

only one remaining source of legitimacy
and
that is the undeniable, unquestionable charismatic nature of Fidel Castro.

“The Cuban people feel abandoned and betrayed by the Free World,
which for the past
39 years has basically sided with the oppressor by overlooking the suffering and the abuses
committed against the entire nation. This has significantly contributed to enhance and
perpetuate the tyrant’s capacity for repression.”

“[In response to a question about why people who are facing the sort of repression meted
out
by Castro’s regime do not] take matters into their own hands — particularly when they have, in
theory, at least, some base of support within the military — is, of course, not an issue narrowly
confined to Cuba. We’re seeing very much the same question arise in connection, for example,
with Iraq.”

One simply cannot underestimate effectiveness of a totalitarian regime in
suppressing dissent

psychologically

physically

but very little opportunity in practice

The Effects and Future of the Embargo

One of the liveliest topics of discussion during the Symposia concerned the U.S. economic
sanctions on Fidel’s Cuba. With an unequaled pool of experience in attendance at each of the
Symposia — including: Roberto Weill, founder and President of La Universidad
Latinoamericana
de la Libertad Friedrich Hayek; Frank Calzon, Director of the Center for Free
Cuba;
Ambassador José Sorzano, former Special Assistant to the President
for National Security Affairs
and U.S. Representative to the United Nations — the conversation offered a wealth of insights
into the value of the embargo today and the implications for U.S. interests should it be weakened
or eliminated while Castro remains in power. Highlights included the following:

“The explanation of Cuba’s woes is idiotically simple. ‘It’s socialism,
stupid.’ The
socialists obviously blame the U.S. embargo. It is an infantile alibi, not consistent with
socialism’s record of systemic poverty generation.”

over $100 billion

The World Bank reported in 1996 that Cuba’s GDP per capita was
$61, the lowest in the world, compared to $400 in 1959.

down to the level of Haiti

Cuba in 1959, by Latin American standards, was a
prosperous society, with a GDP of $2.6 billion versus $880 million in 1998.

“After 1959, Castro stole 161 sugar mills. Of these, 35 were owned by American
companies.
In the late 1950s, they were producing between six and seven million tons of raw sugar
annually, a ton per Cuban inhabitant. Today, double the population, Cuba hardly produces
three to four million tons per year.”

“One of the arguments that have touched the hearts of many people is the idea that sanctions
are responsible for the lack of medicine of Cuban children. If that were the case, I would be
the first to be knocking on Senators doors to make a change in the law. That is simply not
true. It is the kind of disinformation that many of us are familiar with from the Soviet Union in
the 1950s and 1960s.”

Cuba has a sizeable industry, what they call health tourism.

lack of medicine is a result of Castro’s policies, not the result of
the American embargo.

“Often a question asked is whether the embargo should be lifted and they try to force the
Cuban-Americans or anybody else to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ I think that the question should be,
under what conditions should the embargo be lifted, for what purpose, under what
kinds of plans.“

“Economic sanctions are, in fact, a weapon of mass destruction. We tend to adopt them
because we prefer to punish a great many people who are not responsible for the policies we
don’t like, rather than deal with the person or relatively small numbers of people who are.”

“If we could say that an American business could go to Cuba and function in Cuba as if you
were in Costa Rica or in Madrid, I would agree. That is not what Castro wants to do
and
that is not what he is suggesting.“

In the absence of Castro accepting something else, then all you are doing is
providing hard currency for a government that has demonstrated that,
whenever they have hard currency, they have used a big part of it to
promote anti-American interests around the world.

“The investment that we have been making, nominally in our interest, has not
transformed the
political systems in countries which whom we have been ‘engaging.’ You can argue about
how much it has changed the economic system in China, but it certainly has not created the
liberty, the freedoms to say nothing of democratic institutions that have often been promised as
the inexorable result of engagement — if only capitalism is allowed to work.”

even if some small subset of America were to benefit economically
from this sort of investment, I really believe that it will not translate into, on net,
a positive result for the country as a whole. It certainly is not going to help the
people of Cuba.

“[When] America’s friends…vote consistently against the United States, it seems to me, that
on
those issues, the White House has not placed an adequate priority. If Washington is dealing
with Country X and there are seven or eight issues involved, they might decide that, well, the
Cuba issue is not that important as long as the other government goes along on other matters.
It is not that the U.S. does not have any influence. It is that sometimes American
governments either don’t have the political will to exercise it or it is a question of
priorities.“

“Fidel Castro wants to lift the embargo because he wants to be able to re-energize his
legitimacy …. If the United States were to officially scrap its embargo, what arguments
would the U.S. representatives to the World Bank, to the IMF, and the Inter-American
Development Bank use in order to exclude Cuba from those multilateral lending and
granting institutions?“

The Need for Surrogate Broadcasting to Cuba

One of the most promising ways of counteracting Castro’s tyranny would be to redouble
efforts
to counter his determination to control popular access to news and information. This can best be
accomplished by enhancing surrogate broadcasting service to the people of Cuba. In recent years,
the value of such broadcasting to countering repressive regimes has earned increasing attention
and political support in Washington — both with respect to the contribution made by Radio Free
Europe and Radio Liberty to promoting freedom in their respective listening areas and the hope
that a similar contribution might now be made by Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Iran and a Radio
Free Iraq.

In this regard, the 12 May Symposium benefitted from remarks by Herminio San
Román,
Director of Radio/TV Marti. Mr. San Román discussed the systematic repression of
independent
sources of news and information by the Castro regime and the role being played by his surrogate
broadcasting units, both in countering the Cuban government’s propaganda and disinformation
and in creating an essential building block for the transition to functioning democracy. In the
latter regard, he noted that — even where Castro’s determination to deny his people access to
Radio/TV Marti’s broadcasts — these services are making a contribution by preparing an
experienced team of journalists and broadcasters for the day when their services will be needed by
a Free Cuba.

Conclusion

As the foregoing summary makes clear, the Casey Symposia established that the United States
does indeed have vital interests in Cuba. The conversation over the two days demonstrated that
the American government minimizes the abiding threat from Castro’s regime — to say nothing of
giving that regime a new lease on life through normalization of economic and/or diplomatic
relations — at its peril.

— End of Summary —

1. Portions of the Symposia were broadcast into Cuba by Radio/TV
Marti — the vital surrogate
broadcasting operation that is, as was made clear by its Director in the course of the first day’s
discussion, serving a unique purpose in providing the sort of news and other programming in
Spanish that is denied the Cuban people by their government.

2. The first step toward preparing such an option may have been
signaled in a letter dated 6 May
from Secretary of Defense William Cohen to Senator Strom Thurmond formally transmitting the
DIA estimate of the Cuban threat. It read, in part: “I remain concerned about…the
environmental health risks posed to the United States by potential accidents at the Juragua
nuclear power facility.“

3. For more on such low-ball estimates, see the critique of retired
Commander-in-Chief Atlantic
Command Gen. John Sheehan’s comments on the subject contained in the Casey Institute’s
Perspective entitled Castro’s Cuba: A Classic ‘Asymmetric’
Threat (No. 98-C 59, 3 April
1998).

4. To his credit, Secretary of Defense Cohen did, in his recent letter
to Sen. Thurmond
transmitting the DIA intelligence report on Cuba, write that: “I remain concerned about the use
of Cuba as a base for intelligence activities directed against the United States.”

5. See No Apologies To Castro: Politicized Pentagon
Study Misses Abiding Nature of Threat
From Cuba, Promotes Wrong Response (No. 98-C
54, 30 March 1998).

6. In his 6 May transmittal letter to the Congress, Secretary Cohen
wrote: “I remain concerned
about Cuba’s potential to develop and produce biological agents, given its biotechnology
infrastructure.”

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