Dated 1974, this letter from Cuban sugar baron Alfonso Fanjul to his cousin and fellow magnate George Braga reveals the tight connection between US foreign policy toward Cuba and the power of the United States’ wealthiest elite. Following on the heels of President Richard Nixon’s opening of relations with China and Romania, the United States initiated efforts to negotiate the terms for re-establishing diplomatic ties to Castro’s Cuba. Post-Watergate, President Jimmy Carter picked up where Nixon left off, accomplishing the opening of consular services for the first time since 1960 and the release of nearly 4,000 political prisoners. Their transfer to the United States was of clear value to Fidel Castro who did not want even those who had served 15- to 20-year sentences undermining the state’s goals of creating an ideologically homogenized citizenry. Most interesting of all, perhaps, is Alfonso Fanjul’s entreaty that his endorsement of an opening should never be made public: making it so would raise the ire of extreme rightwing exiles, thousands of whom controlled and policed a zero-sum policy of no-negotiation in Miami, just as Fidel Castro did in Havana. Braga Brothers Collection, Special and Area Studies Collections, Smathers Library, University of Florida.
