NEW YORK — U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered contingency plans drawn up nearly 40 years ago to attack Cuba, incensed over the small island’s deployment of troops to Angola, according to declassified government documents posted online Wednesday.
In several White House meetings, Kissinger advocated for strong action to stop Fidel Castro, fearful that his incursion in Africa was making the U.S. look weak. He argued that Cuba’s actions were driving fears around the world of a wider war that could spill over into Latin America and even destabilize the Middle East.
In a series of contingency plans that followed, options ranged from a military blockade to airstrikes and mining of Cuban ports. But the documents also warned of heavy risks, including a wider conflict with the Soviet Union and a ground war to defend the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay.
“I think we are going to have to smash Castro. I don’t think we can do it before the election,” Kissinger told President Gerald Ford, according to a transcript of a Feb. 25, 1976, meeting in the Oval Office. Ford replied, “I agree.”
The documents were declassified by the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library at the request of the National Security Archive, which published them online Wednesday. An account of the episode is being published in a new book, Back Channel to Cuba, written by William LeoGrande, a professor at American University, and Peter Kornbluh, director of the Cuban Documentation Project at the National Security Archive.