When the U.S. Senate on December 17, 1975 debated the question of cutting off aid to the anti-Soviet forces in Angola, some Senators suggested that, if we would just stay out of the way, Angola might prove to be Russia’s Vietnam.
That was woolly-headed wishful thinking. The reason why Angola could not become Russia’s Vietnam is that the Soviets had no intention of committing their own troops. They fight proxy wars.
While we withdrew all aid thereby forcing the retreat of the anti-Soviet forces, the Russians put up $500 million and got the Cubans to do their fighting. The Soviets have continued to send about $350 million a year in weapons and equipment to Angola.
The Soviets are receiving a big return on their investment. By October 1976, the Angolan government officially described itself as a “Marxist-Leninist republic.” The Russians have established excellent naval bases for their warships at Luanda in Angola, at four ports in Mozambique, and in Somalia and Congo-Brazzaville.
Cuba is the country that could become Russia’s Vietnam. The Castro regime has brought economic disaster to Cuba, and it costs the Soviets more than one million dollars per day to keep Castro propped up in power.
Instead of letting the Soviets struggle with their Cuban albatross, some American politicians, such as Senator George McGovern, appear to be rushing forward to help Brezhnev carry his Cuban burden. These politicians are urging us to normalize relations with Castro, leading to diplomatic recognition.
These politicians are even suggesting that we lift our trade embargo and resume trade with Cuba. Since Cuba hasn’t the money to trade with us, such “trade” would have to be financed by U.S. loans.
The Carter Administration has been extending the olive branch to Castro. It quietly cancelled our aircraft surveillance of Cuba which could give us advance warning if the Soviets deploy any offensive missiles there as Khrushchev did in 1962.
Does President Carter think that the Soviets wouldn’t do such a thing? If so, he should remember that the Soviet Foreign Minister who solemnly assured President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office that there were no missiles in Cuba, at the very time that Kennedy had our U-2 pictures of their missiles sitting in his desk drawer, is the same Andrei Gromyko who recently bitterly denounced Secretary Cyrus Vance’s Moscow proposal on arms control.
Castro is pushing ahead with his ambitious plans for aggression in Africa. The 14,000 Cuban troops still in Angola have divided the country into six military regions and are consolidating their political and economic control. The flight of refugees out of Angola into South West Africa testifies to how the new Cuban masters are feared by the native population.
More than 1,000 Cuban advisers and military instructors are in Mozambique. At least 600 Cuban instructors are in Somalia. Cubans are active in Equatorial Guinea and in Sekou Toure’s Guinea. Cuban instructors are training units in, Sierra Leona.
Cuban “technicians” are in strategic West African points such as Guine-Bissau, the Cape Verde Islands, and Sao Tome e Principe. Cuban advisers and “technicians” are in Tanzania.
A more inappropriate time to resume friendship with Cuba could hardly have been selected. Diplomatic recognition of Castro would prove that aggression pays.
