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William D. Pawley

Papers of Gerald Ford:

http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/FordL...d_vp_files_c023

Title: 1970-Campaign Finance-Pawley, William D. Congressional Elections, Campaign Funds, Grand Rapids, Sugar

Gulf & Western Corporation-----Issued in 1959 to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner* and Smith, Inc.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

http://www.scripophily.net/guwecobepapi.html

Gulf & Western: Owner of South Puerto Rico Sugar (formerly South Porto Rico Sugar)

In the Kingdom of Big Sugar

http://www.mariebrenner.com/articles/bigsugar/fan2.html

"Okeelanta, a subsidary of South Puerto Rico Sugar, controlled 90,000 acres of sugar property in South Florida and 240,000 acres in the Dominican Republic.

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William D. Pawley

Papers of Gerald Ford:

http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/FordL...d_vp_files_c023

Title: 1970-Campaign Finance-Pawley, William D. Congressional Elections, Campaign Funds, Grand Rapids, Sugar

Gulf & Western Corporation-----Issued in 1959 to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner* and Smith, Inc.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

http://www.scripophily.net/guwecobepapi.html

Gulf & Western: Owner of South Puerto Rico Sugar (formerly South Porto Rico Sugar)

In the Kingdom of Big Sugar

http://www.mariebrenner.com/articles/bigsugar/fan2.html

"Okeelanta, a subsidary of South Puerto Rico Sugar, controlled 90,000 acres of sugar property in South Florida and 240,000 acres in the Dominican Republic.

"Previous reports of Cuban exile activity in the Dominican Republic had been linked to the huge Gulf & Western operation with it's many Cuban exiles in top management positions..."

http://archive.nacla.org/Summaries/V12I1P45-1.htm

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William D. Pawley

Papers of Gerald Ford:

http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/FordL...d_vp_files_c023

Title: 1970-Campaign Finance-Pawley, William D. Congressional Elections, Campaign Funds, Grand Rapids, Sugar

Gulf & Western Corporation-----Issued in 1959 to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner* and Smith, Inc.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

http://www.scripophily.net/guwecobepapi.html

Gulf & Western: Owner of South Puerto Rico Sugar (formerly South Porto Rico Sugar)

In the Kingdom of Big Sugar

http://www.mariebrenner.com/articles/bigsugar/fan2.html

"Okeelanta, a subsidary of South Puerto Rico Sugar, controlled 90,000 acres of sugar property in South Florida and 240,000 acres in the Dominican Republic.

"Previous reports of Cuban exile activity in the Dominican Republic had been linked to the huge Gulf & Western operation with it's many Cuban exiles in top management positions..."

http://archive.nacla.org/Summaries/V12I1P45-1.htm

"In 1956 my father was hired by the American owned South Puerto Rico Sugar Company to be the chief electrical engineer at the La Ramona Sugar Mill."

In the late 60's and early 70's the South Puerto Rico Sugar Company; including properties in Florida, Puerto Rico and the Dominican republic became part of the conglomerate Guly & Western industris;"

http://grove.ufl.edu/~flaco/Youth.html

LA ROMANA: 37 km east of San Pedro, has been a one-company town since the Southe Porto Rico Sugar Company build the mammoth Central Romana mill in 1917.

It was the only sugar operation not taken over by Trujillo during his reign.

http://dg.ian.com/index.jsp?cid=10429&acti...ocationId=43665

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William D. Pawley

Papers of Gerald Ford:

http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/FordL...d_vp_files_c023

Title: 1970-Campaign Finance-Pawley, William D. Congressional Elections, Campaign Funds, Grand Rapids, Sugar

Gulf & Western Corporation-----Issued in 1959 to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner* and Smith, Inc.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

http://www.scripophily.net/guwecobepapi.html

Gulf & Western: Owner of South Puerto Rico Sugar (formerly South Porto Rico Sugar)

In the Kingdom of Big Sugar

http://www.mariebrenner.com/articles/bigsugar/fan2.html

"Okeelanta, a subsidary of South Puerto Rico Sugar, controlled 90,000 acres of sugar property in South Florida and 240,000 acres in the Dominican Republic.

"Previous reports of Cuban exile activity in the Dominican Republic had been linked to the huge Gulf & Western operation with it's many Cuban exiles in top management positions..."

http://archive.nacla.org/Summaries/V12I1P45-1.htm

"In 1956 my father was hired by the American owned South Puerto Rico Sugar Company to be the chief electrical engineer at the La Ramona Sugar Mill."

In the late 60's and early 70's the South Puerto Rico Sugar Company; including properties in Florida, Puerto Rico and the Dominican republic became part of the conglomerate Guly & Western industris;"

http://grove.ufl.edu/~flaco/Youth.html

LA ROMANA: 37 km east of San Pedro, has been a one-company town since the Southe Porto Rico Sugar Company build the mammoth Central Romana mill in 1917.

It was the only sugar operation not taken over by Trujillo during his reign.

http://dg.ian.com/index.jsp?cid=10429&acti...ocationId=43665

South Porto Rico Sugar/aka South Puerto Rico Sugar:

Incorporated: New Jersey

http://www.scripophily.net/soporisucone.html

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William D. Pawley

Papers of Gerald Ford:

http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/FordL...d_vp_files_c023

Title: 1970-Campaign Finance-Pawley, William D. Congressional Elections, Campaign Funds, Grand Rapids, Sugar

Gulf & Western Corporation-----Issued in 1959 to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner* and Smith, Inc.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

http://www.scripophily.net/guwecobepapi.html

Gulf & Western: Owner of South Puerto Rico Sugar (formerly South Porto Rico Sugar)

In the Kingdom of Big Sugar

http://www.mariebrenner.com/articles/bigsugar/fan2.html

"Okeelanta, a subsidary of South Puerto Rico Sugar, controlled 90,000 acres of sugar property in South Florida and 240,000 acres in the Dominican Republic.

"Previous reports of Cuban exile activity in the Dominican Republic had been linked to the huge Gulf & Western operation with it's many Cuban exiles in top management positions..."

http://archive.nacla.org/Summaries/V12I1P45-1.htm

"In 1956 my father was hired by the American owned South Puerto Rico Sugar Company to be the chief electrical engineer at the La Ramona Sugar Mill."

In the late 60's and early 70's the South Puerto Rico Sugar Company; including properties in Florida, Puerto Rico and the Dominican republic became part of the conglomerate Guly & Western industris;"

http://grove.ufl.edu/~flaco/Youth.html

LA ROMANA: 37 km east of San Pedro, has been a one-company town since the Southe Porto Rico Sugar Company build the mammoth Central Romana mill in 1917.

It was the only sugar operation not taken over by Trujillo during his reign.

http://dg.ian.com/index.jsp?cid=10429&acti...ocationId=43665

South Porto Rico Sugar/aka South Puerto Rico Sugar:

Incorporated: New Jersey

http://www.scripophily.net/soporisucone.html

Bondage in Old Hispaniola: The Haitian Canecutters (working in the Dominican sugar fields)

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1345

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William D. Pawley

Papers of Gerald Ford:

http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/FordL...d_vp_files_c023

Title: 1970-Campaign Finance-Pawley, William D. Congressional Elections, Campaign Funds, Grand Rapids, Sugar

Gulf & Western Corporation-----Issued in 1959 to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner* and Smith, Inc.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

http://www.scripophily.net/guwecobepapi.html

Gulf & Western: Owner of South Puerto Rico Sugar (formerly South Porto Rico Sugar)

In the Kingdom of Big Sugar

http://www.mariebrenner.com/articles/bigsugar/fan2.html

"Okeelanta, a subsidary of South Puerto Rico Sugar, controlled 90,000 acres of sugar property in South Florida and 240,000 acres in the Dominican Republic.

"Previous reports of Cuban exile activity in the Dominican Republic had been linked to the huge Gulf & Western operation with it's many Cuban exiles in top management positions..."

http://archive.nacla.org/Summaries/V12I1P45-1.htm

"In 1956 my father was hired by the American owned South Puerto Rico Sugar Company to be the chief electrical engineer at the La Ramona Sugar Mill."

In the late 60's and early 70's the South Puerto Rico Sugar Company; including properties in Florida, Puerto Rico and the Dominican republic became part of the conglomerate Guly & Western industris;"

http://grove.ufl.edu/~flaco/Youth.html

LA ROMANA: 37 km east of San Pedro, has been a one-company town since the Southe Porto Rico Sugar Company build the mammoth Central Romana mill in 1917.

It was the only sugar operation not taken over by Trujillo during his reign.

http://dg.ian.com/index.jsp?cid=10429&acti...ocationId=43665

South Porto Rico Sugar/aka South Puerto Rico Sugar:

Incorporated: New Jersey

http://www.scripophily.net/soporisucone.html

Bondage in Old Hispaniola: The Haitian Canecutters (working in the Dominican sugar fields)

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1345

World Sugar History:

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/wshn/number7.html

________________________________________________________________________________

_______

Reference:

The South Porto Rico Sugar Company: the history of a U.S. multinational corporation in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, 1900-1921

Author: Garcia Mu~niz, Humberto

Published: 1997

________________________________________________________________________________

________

American Troops into the Dominican Republic & the Sugar Industry.

http://www.grahamfoundation.org/abstract/g...stractNo=02.012

________________________________________________________________________________

_________

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William D. Pawley

Papers of Gerald Ford:

http://www.ibiblio.org/lia/president/FordL...d_vp_files_c023

Title: 1970-Campaign Finance-Pawley, William D. Congressional Elections, Campaign Funds, Grand Rapids, Sugar

Gulf & Western Corporation-----Issued in 1959 to Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner* and Smith, Inc.

Grand Rapids, Michigan

http://www.scripophily.net/guwecobepapi.html

Gulf & Western: Owner of South Puerto Rico Sugar (formerly South Porto Rico Sugar)

In the Kingdom of Big Sugar

http://www.mariebrenner.com/articles/bigsugar/fan2.html

"Okeelanta, a subsidary of South Puerto Rico Sugar, controlled 90,000 acres of sugar property in South Florida and 240,000 acres in the Dominican Republic.

Sugar Mills, (& sugar cane fields) targets of extreme military importance.

http://www.ajweberman.com/nodules/nodule20.htm

Manual Artime---destroyer of Cuban Sugar Mills.

Perhaps the bombing of Cuban sugar mills and setting fire to cuban sugar cane fields had motives other than just the financial impact to Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Just perhaps, such actions helped to drive up the price of sugar for those who had investments in sugar plantations other than in Cuba.

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Hey Tom.

Would 'sugar' translate into anything else? I have read interesting allegations concerning the impact on sugar prices due to the Cuban embargo, and what this implied for US soft drink companies. Is there any sort of link?

- lee

Anything which had to do with making money off any other country, William D. Pawley would have his hands in it if he could.

One should note the date of the FBI letter (February, 1963).

Thereafter, one should note the schedule of George DeMohrenschildt:

March, 1963---Travelled to Haiti, and stopped off in the Dominican Republic.

De Mohrenschildt's "geological survey" approved. Payment to be in the amount of $285,000.00.

Payment initially made in the sum of $20,000.00 cash, and the remaining monies to be paid over a period of ten years from interest in a "sisal" plantation at Montrouis which was to be operated by Clemard J. Charles.

Easter, 1963----Back in Dallas, visited the Oswalds.

May 1963---Left Dallas, stopped over in New York, Washington, and Philadelphia.

June 1963---Went to Haiti. Stopped over in Dominican Republic

April--1964---Went to Dominican Republic from Haiti to get Vureau of Mines information. Went to San Juan Puerto Rico.

"With the introduction of industrial sugar and sisal production in Haiti by giant American companies like the Haitian American Sugar Company (HASCO), peasants were driven off their land and forced to work in the fields and factories of the American companies."

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/399.html

Dauphin Plantation--HASCO (Haitian American Sugar Company)/Sisal production history.

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/mis...hin/history.htm

"Sisal" money & "Sugar" money are the same when received from the same source.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Mr. McKeown: The people came down to see me, you see, after Castro took over, for wanting me to do those people favors, like sugar.

Mr. McKeown: Anyway, he told me that it was a very mysterious thing. He told me, he says, do you have any work clothes like kahakis, khaki pants and things? I said well, I can get some. What is the occassion? He said we want you to go to the top floor of the Gulf Building in Houston. We want you to get off two floors before you get to the top and walk up and dress like a working person. So I did. I went and when I got up there, Ike Eisenhower, like the picture there, his picture was all over and the American flag was all over and he asked me if I knew anybody who was going to be on castro's Cabinet and if I could see my influence to get a quota of sugar. I told him I was on probation. I could not go to Cuba . And he said well, we can get you to Cuba. I said what is it? I think he was a campaign manager for Ike Eisenhower or something. I really do not known who he was, but I know he was up in some kind of a campaign and this fellow Porter was there. And that was about all there was to it. He just wanted me to use my influence to get a whole lot of sugar.

Mr. McKeown: Like I told you about the fellow, Porter, he wanted a big quota of sugar out of there for the government of the United States.

________________________________________________________________________________

________

HSCA Testimony of gunrunner Robert Ray McKeown.

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  • 5 months later...

http://www.sdsrebels.com/oglesby.htm

"Comes 1965. The Dominican Republic. Rebellion in the streets. We scurry to the spot with twenty thousand neutral Marines and our neutral peacemakers - like Ellsworth Bunker Jr., Ambassador to the Organization of American States. Most of us know that our neutral Marines fought openly on the side of the junta, a fact that the Administration still denies. But how many also know that what was at stake was our new Caribbean Sugar Bowl? That this same neutral peacemaking Bunker is a board member and stock owner of the National Sugar Refining Company, a firm his father founded in the good old days, and one which has a major interest in maintaining the status quo in the Dominican Republic? Or that the President's close personal friend and advisor, our new Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, has sat for the past 19 years on the board of the Sucrest Company, which imports blackstrap molasses from the Dominican Republic? Or that the rhetorician of corporate liberalism and the late President Kennedy's close friend Adolf Berle, was chairman of that same board? Or that our roving ambassador Averill Harriman's brother Roland is on the board of National Sugar? Or that our former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Joseph Farland, is a board member of the South Puerto Rico Sugar Co., which owns two hundred and seventy‑five thousand acres of rich land in the Dominican Republic and is the largest employer on the island - at about one dollar a day?

Neutralists! God save the hungry people of the world from such neutralists! "

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar

With the European colonization of the Americas, the Caribbean became the world's largest source of sugar. Sugar cane could be grown on these islands using slave labour at vastly lower prices than cane sugar imported from the East. Thus the economies of entire islands such as Guadaloupe and Barbados were based on sugar production. The largest sugar producer in the world, by 1750, was the French colony known as Saint-Domingue, which is today the independent country of Haiti. Jamaica was another major producer in the 1700s

Sugar cane quickly exhausts the soil and larger islands with fresher soil were pressed into production in the nineteenth century. For example, it was in this century that Cuba rose as the richest land in the Caribbean (with sugar being its dominant crop) because it was the only major island that was free of mountainous terrain. Instead, nearly three-quarters of its land formed a rolling plain which was ideal for planting crops. Cuba also prospered above other islands because they used better methods when harvesting the sugar crops. They had been introduced to modern milling methods such as water mills, enclosed furnaces, steam engines, and vacuum pans. All these things increased their production and production rate.

After the world's only successful slave revolution established the independent nation of Haiti, sugar production in that country declined and Cuba replaced Saint-Domingue as the world's largest producer. Production spread to South America as well as to new European colonies in Africa and the Pacific.

After 1625, the Dutch carried sugarcane from South America to the Caribbean islands from Barbados to the Virgin Islands. In the years 1625 to 1750, sugar was worth its weight in gold. Price declined slowly as production became multi-sourced especially through British colonial policy. Sugar production also increased in the American Colonies, Cuba, and Brazil. African slaves became the dominant plantation worker as they were resistant to the diseases of malaria and yellow fever. European indentured servants were in shorter supply, susceptible to disease and a less economic investment. Local Native Americans had been reduced by European diseases like smallpox.

The major cane sugar producing countries are countries with warm climates, such as Brazil, India, China and Australia (in descending order). In 2001/2002 there was over twice as much sugar produced in developing countries as in developed countries. The greatest quantity of sugar is produced in Latin America, the United States and the Caribbean nations, and in the Far East.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahia

Bahia is one of the states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast.

Bahia was a center of sugar cultivation from the 16th to the 18th centuries, and contains a number of historical towns dating from this era. Integral to the sugar economy was the importation of a vast number of African slaves; more than 37% of all slaves taken from Africa were sent to Brazil, mostly to be processed in Bahia before being sent to work in plantations elsewhere in the country.

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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052131399...glance&n=283155

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Sugar Plantation is a major contribution to our efforts to understand Bahia and its sugar and slaveholding system. It is required readin not only for specialists in Brazilian history, but for anyone interested in the question of slavery and race relations in the Americas.' Francis A. Dutra, Hispanic American Historical Review

'Clearly destined to become a classic in the field.' Eric Van Young, Agricultural History

Book Description

This study examines the history of the sugar economy and the peculiar development of plantation society over a three hundred year period in Bahia, a major sugar plantation zone and an important terminus of the Atlantic slave trade. Drawing on little-used archival sources, plantations accounts, and notarial records, Professor Schwartz has examined through both quantitative and qualitative methods the various groups that made up plantation society. While he devotes much attention to masters and slaves, he views slavery ultimately as part of a larger structure of social and economic relations. The peculiarities of sugar-making and the nature of plantation labour are used throughout the book as keys to an understanding of.roles and relationships in plantation society. A comparative perspective is also employed, so that studies of slavery elsewhere in the Americas inform the analysis, while at many points direct comparisons of the Bahian case with other plantation societies are also made.

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http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=904_0_5_0

Brazil is the world's largest exporter of sugar, coffee and orange juice,

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Pawley, William Douglas (1896-1977) — also known as William D. Pawley — of Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, Fla. Born in Florence, Florence County, S.C., September 7, 1896. Republican. U.S. Ambassador to Peru, 1945-46; Brazil, 1946-48; delegate to Republican National Convention from Florida, 1964.

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http://www.astorialic.org/starjournal/1940...2september.shtm

LONG ISLAND CITY LOSING INDUSTRY FROM WAR

Queens faces the loss of one of it major industries, with about 1,200 jobs on the line. The Long Island City National Sugar Refinery, at 2-03 55 Avenue since the turn of the century, is largest refinery in the country. The move eliminates hauling sugar from fields in Louisiana to Long Island City, a trip of 1,000 miles. This frees up the rails for transporting fuel-oil to the Atlantic seaboard. The War Production Board Efficiency Program adds to the 300,000 workers idled in the 5 boroughs.

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http://www.nakina.net/reportd.html

DMSX Dunbar Molasses & Syrup Co. 7/1923

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http://railroad.union.rpi.edu/rolling-stoc...int/96-1-Du.php

Dunbar Molasses & Syrup Co.

In 1919, indicated as a recent addition, this New Orleans, LA company listed 70 tank cars, nos. 100-169. No gallonage was indicated. They were said to be marked with the name as above and "D.M.S.X."

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Dunbar Molasses

Name: DUNBAR MOLASSES COMPANY

Type Entity: Business Corporation

Mailing Address: ', NEW ORLEANS, LA 70150

Domicile Address: ', NEW ORLEANS, LA 70150

Incorporated: 11/15/1911

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Canadian Industrial Alcohol Company v. Dunbar Molasses Company: At the end of 1927, the plaintiff contracted to buy from the defendant about 1,500,000 wine gallons of refined blackstrap molasses, about 60% sugar, of the usual run from the National Sugar Refinery, Yonkers, NY. Delivery was to begin April 1, 1928 "to be spread out during the warn weather." The refinery that year produced far less than its capacity, less than a half-million gallons. The defendant shipped its entire allotment. 344,083 gallons, to the plaintiff. The plaintiff sued for damages, but the defendant contended that its duty was conditioned by an implied term, the refinery producing enough molasses to fill the plaintiff?s order. The defendant had no contract with the refinery. If the promisor is in some way responsible for the event, which makes performance of the promise impossible, justice does not dictate that he be excused. In this case, the defendant did not contract with its supplier to ensure usual production and he must pay damages.

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http://www.internationalist.org/biowarfare...stcuba0503.html

Defend Cuba Against Counterrevolution,

External and Internal!

Decades of U.S. Biowarfare Against Cuba

In May 2002, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control, John Bolton, made a speech at the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation accusing Cuba of having “at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort.” He also claimed Cuba had “provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states,” and called on Cuba to “fully comply with all of its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention” (BWC). This is pretty rich coming from the U.S., which the summer before walked out of a meeting to strengthen enforcement provisions of the BWC. But the threat was clear: Bolton’s speech was ominously titled, “Beyond the Axis of Evil,” and in it he threatened that states that do not “renounce terror and abandon weapons of mass destruction…can expect to become our targets.” Like Iraq. A spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington labeled this attack “a big lie and a big slander.”

Bolton is a rabid right-winger and protégé of ultra-conservative former senator Jesse Helms. But he was not off on a tangent of his own. The same accusation against Cuba was made two months earlier in Congressional testimony by Carl Ford, the undersecretary of state for intelligence and research. This is the first time the U.S. has charged Cuba with developing chemical/biological arms. Washington offered no proof of its allegations, and when challenged, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer retreated into nebulous talk of “concerns.” That did not stop bioweapons “expert” Judith Miller from writing a scurrilous piece in the New York Times (7 May 2002) retailing the trumped-up claims and quoting unnamed “administration officials” who said the U.S. “believes that Cuba has been experimenting with anthrax.” The Center for Defense Information published an article skewering Bolton, titled “Cuba: Bioweapons Threat or Political Punching Bag?” (22 May 2002). Even former U.S. president Jimmy Carter dismissed the politically motivated charges during a visit to Cuba’s famed biomedical research center.

What is true is that Cuba has become a world leader in biotechnology research and production. Cuban researchers at the Finlay Institute and the Western Havana Scientific Pole have produced a number of important new drugs, including a meningitis vaccine, a vaccine for hepatitis B and medicines for treating diseases afflicting the impoverished populations of “Third World” countries which are typically ignored by the profit-driven multinational giants of “Big Pharma.” Cuba’s investment in scientific education (it has 2 percent of Latin America’s population and 22 percent of the region’s scientists) could potentially reap large export earnings in desperately needed hard currency.

As Washington tries to tighten the screws on the four-decade-old embargo on Cuba in an attempt to strangle the country economically, the U.S. wants to shut down this key industry. This bureaucratically deformed workers state has been a prime target of Yankee imperialism in its drive to “roll back” the Cuban Revolution and to spike revolutionary struggle throughout the hemisphere. Trotskyists defend Cuba against counterrevolution, external and internal, while fighting for workers political revolution to replace the Castro bureaucracy, with its nationalist outlook, by a revolutionary internationalist workers government dedicated to extending the revolution throughout South, Central and North America and the Caribbean.

While accusations of biological warfare by Cuba are utterly bogus, a typical Cold War “disinformation” campaign, the United States government has a long history of using biological and chemical warfare against the Caribbean island nation. In 1961-62, the CIA’s infamous “Operation Mongoose” sought to cause sickness among sugar cane workers by spreading chemicals on the cane fields. U.S. agents repeatedly contaminated exported Cuban sugar. The CIA later admitted that during the 1960s it undertook clandestine anti-crop warfare “research” targeting a number of countries under its MK-ULTRA program, but claimed its records had been destroyed. At the end of the decade, as Castro tried to mobilize the population to bring in ten million tons of sugar, in addition to the regime’s rampant bureaucratic snafus the CIA sabotaged the harvest by seeding clouds to cause torrential rains in nearby provinces while leaving the cane fields parched (see William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II [Common Courage Press, 1995]).

After that “success,” the U.S. moved on to introduce African swine fever to Cuba in 1971. This was the first outbreak of swine fever in the Western Hemisphere. As a result of the epidemic, Cuba was forced to slaughter the entire pig population (some 500,000 animals), eliminating the supply of pork, a staple of the Cuban diet. When Cuban government spokesmen first accused Washington of unleashing the biological attack, U.S. officials dismissed this with a wave of the hand. However, six years later, following the post-Watergate Congressional investigations of skullduggery by U.S. intelligence agencies, a New York paper reported that a “U.S. intelligence source” told the paper that “he was given the virus in a sealed, unmarked container at a U.S. Army base and CIA training ground in Panama with instructions to turn it over to the anti-Castro group” (“CIA Link to Cuban Pig Virus Reported,” Newsday, 10 January 1977). The article explained in detail how the virus was transferred from Fort Gulick to Cuba.

A decade later, the U.S. introduced a virulent strain of dengue fever in Cuba, as a result of which 273,000 people on the island came down with the illness and 158 died, including 101 children. An article in Covert Action (Summer 1982) detailed U.S. experiments with dengue fever at the Army’s Fort Detrick chemical/biological warfare center and its research into the Aedes aegypti mosquito which delivers it. The article noted that only Cuba of all the Caribbean countries was affected, and concluded that “the dengue epidemic could have been a covert U.S. operation.” Two years later, a leader of the Omega 7 gusano (Cuban counterrevolutionary) terrorist group, Eduardo Victor Arocena Pérez, admitted (in a Manhattan trial in which he was convicted of murdering an attaché of the Cuban Mission to the UN) that one of their groups had a mission to “carry some germs to introduce them in Cuba to be used against the Soviets and against the Cuban economy, to begin what was called chemical war” just before simultaneous outbreaks of hemorrhagic dengue fever, hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, tobacco mold, sugar cane fungus and a new outbreak of African swine fever (Covert Action, Fall 1984).

These are only a few of the most spectacular and best documented cases of U.S. biological warfare against Cuba. James Banford in his book Body of Secrets (Doubleday, 2001) revealed that while the Pentagon was refining plans for a biological strike on Cuba, in “Operation Northwoods” the U.S. military developed plans to fake incidents to cause popular outrage. These included shooting people on American streets, sinking refugee boats on the high seas and blowing up a U.S. ship in Guantánamo. These was no mere contingency plans. They were drawn up by rabidly anti-Communist general Lyman Lemnitzer, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the suggestion of U.S. president (former general) Eisenhower, and were signed by all of the service chiefs. But they pale in comparison with the operation code-named “Marshall Plan,” which was to have been unleashed if U.S. forces invaded Cuba at the time of the 1962 missile crisis.

The plan was to attack all of Cuba with incapacitating agents, in a biological strike that would affect millions of Cubans. The scientific director at Fort Detrick said that one alternative considered was spraying Cuban troops with lethal botulinum toxin, arguing that this would be “a good thing” since it would save American lives in an invasion. Judith Miller, who reported this plan in her book Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War (Simon & Schuster, 2001), says that it involved a “cocktail” of two germs and a biological toxin producing extreme nausea, fevers of up to 106 degrees Fht. (close to what produces comas and death), Venezuelan equine encephalitis and Q fever. “Teams at Pine Bluff [the main U.S. chemical weapons plant] made thousands of gallons of the cocktail, enough to fill a swimming pool,” Miller reports. The head of Pine Bluff argued, “We could move our forces in and take over the country and that would be it.”

The Fort Detrick director argued that there was “a humane aspect” to the plan, because it would reduce the number of casualties from fighting. The plan was to spray from East to West, to take advantage of the prevailing trade winds, and blanket Havana. And this “humane” U.S. biological warfare would “only” kill 1 to 2 percent of the Cuban population. Given the island’s population of roughly 7 million at the time, this means the Pentagon was planning to kill between 70,000 and 140,000 Cuban civilians. Actual fatalities would probably have been far higher. When Harvard biologist Matthew Meselson learned of the plan, he went to his former colleague McGeorge Bundy, the evil genius of the Vietnam War who was U.S. president John Kennedy’s national security advisor. Bundy promised that the Marshall Plan would be kept out of the war plans. But according to Miller, “In fact, the germs stayed in the war plans, former officials said.”

And the U.S. government dares to accuse Cuba of possible biological warfare!

Defend Cuba against bloodthirsty Yankee imperialism!

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