An Unusual RAND Document on the "Cuban Revolution" of 1961(?)

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

• “The American people are entitled to know whether we are intervening in Cuba or intend to do so in the future…The answer to that question is no. What happens in Cuba is for the Cuban people to decide.”--Secretary of State Dean Rusk, April 17, 1961, 2 days in to the CIA-sponsored invasion of Cuba. 

•  "I know the world thinks of us, we are Communists, and of course I have said very clear that we are not Communists; very clear."--Fidel Castro,  "Cuban Revolution". 1959 Year in Review. United Press International, the statement made on his tour of the U.S. in 1959.  

James Farmer of the RAND Corporation wrote a summary of the U.S.-backed insurgency against Fidel Castro's government in the infamous Bay of Pig campaign in his  Notes on the 1961 Cuban Revolution sponsored by the U.S. Air Force Project Rand Report, and published (May Day!)  May 1, 1961.  This is an internal document, or pre-print of the report, reproducing the document in some sort of photo-mechanical way, and it focused on the failures of the “Cuban revolution”—the same day as Castro’s May Day speech proclaiming his overwhelming victory against the counter-revolution. 

Farmer states in his opening line:  “If tacticians and political scientists can learn from errors, the first 1961 Cuban Revolution should be invaluable”. 

Farmer evidently was sending a message in this medium as he refers again and again to the “first 1961” Cuban Revolution.  He was not referring of course to 1953-1959 Castro-led revolution that ousted President Batista--rather it was a political statement by the author relating to what he assumed would be subsequent "movements" against the Cuban government. 

 

• For some reason the only references on the internet that I've found for this document come from me.  Also: there is no record of this work in the OCLC.  This item is available at the blog's bookstore, here.  

 Farmer also wrote a close and interesting appraisal of the "counter-insurgency" in Vietnam 1961-2, here:  http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2006/P2778.pdf