uw oct Kt r E¥ ES CNLY IE IOR - ' 'Dl · 1 THE WHITE IIOL S E ' - Slll c -ro MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT FROM ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI SUBJECT Conversations in Havana TS As you will recall Peter Tarnoff and Bob Pastor went to Havana December 2 4 at the Cuban government's invitation They had 5½ hours of discussion on Saturday December 2 with Vi P Pr sident Carlos Raf el Rodriguez and Raul Valdez Vivo Secretary Foreign Relations in the Central Committee President Castro received them for five full hours of discussions 10 P H Sunday until 3 A M Monday December 4 The transcripts of their conversat1on are attached We have underlined the more important sec tic• 1i o so as to facilit L •our skimming them TS Let me recommend that you start with the Rodriguez meeting On foreign policy and on all matters affecting Cuban relations with the U S Rodriguez is the second most influential person in Cuba He is an intellectual is reasonably comfortable in English his library has among hundreds of volumes the Kalbs' book on Kissinger Schlesinger on The Imperial Presidency and he has been a leader of the Cuban Communist Party all his life The tone o f the conversation was iplomatic and correct but the ideological differences between the positions of Cuba and the U S particularly in Africa were clearer in Rodriguez's statement than in any others including Castro's pp 15-17 TS Castro clearly picked up from where the conversation with Rodriguez had left off Obviously Castro had been fully briefed He completely understood the message which Tarnoff and Pastor had brought and he didn't like it The transcript picks up the precision of his arguments and the importance he gives to details but it fails to convey the passion or the force which Castro who surprisingly speaks quite softly brought to his arguments Castro was clearly speaking directly to you and he decided that this was the time for him to vent twenty years of rage which had been bottled up inside of him • TS I0P S£CR E - EYES ONLY Revie on December 19 1990 C1ass1f1ed and extena d by Z Brzezinski Reason for extention NSC 1 13 d e f - J QI SEt RET- -- EYES ONLY -2- More than perhaps any other leader including DeGaulle Castro speaks of his nation's dignity as if he were Cuba He has ruled Cuba for twenty years and at 52 he expects to be a round for a long time more But the sense that history is on his side is belied by an evident sense of impatience TS We recommend that you focus in particular on two sections his introductory statement pp 2-5 and his statement about the SR-71 overflight bottom of p 12-13 TS Conclusions The purpose of this trip was to try to draw Cuba's leaders out and to see whether there was any way we would be abl e to secure the release of the U ·s prisoners Obviously therE was no problem ' ' t ring out Castro since he had a lot he want l' l--S f' off his ch t On U S prisoners Castro said that he c0uld not release them at this time but he didn't close the door to a future release TS As i the past much of the conversation was devo' erl to Africa We n J terated our position that the embargo was rel t r d to their military act i ities in Africa and they completely and unl 1 tu vocably rejected that They said they don't negotia t e our troops abroad and we shouldn't negotiate there's they don't have an embargo on us why should we maintain our's they don't intend to let the fascists of Rhodesia and South Africa prevail But Castro did say that Cuban troops might be reduced in Ethiopia soon and that he would pull them out immediately if asked to do so ·by Neto or Mengistu Not only did the Cubans firmly reject the idea of committing themselves to not intervene anywhere else in Africa they hinted that their support of liberation movements might draw them in before too long We should have no illusions about their intentions in Africa They will not be helpful they do not view developments in Africa as we do they probably define their interests in Africa differently than we do They want to play an important role in Africa and if that means they will have to live with the embargo they are reconciled to it TS On the prisoners Castro was pleased that he had taken the initiative and was almost smug in the way he portrayed our seeming reluctance to accept the prisoners In asking our position on reunification of families - an important issue to the Cuban-American community -- Castro hinted that he would turn the human rights argument against us if we weren't more responsive TS In summary we are stuck· in Africa On human rights he has indeed grasped the importance of the issue and turned it against us On Puerto Rico they are committed to the principle of independence but they gave the impression that their behavior will be modulated according· to the tone of our relationship at the time TS _ rop seeRET EYES ONLY