THE CUBAN BISHOPS: A CASE OF MISINFORMATION' A Paper for the Seminar: La Religion y la Iglesia Católica en Cuba Contemporánea Harvard University and the Instituto de Estudios Cubanos May 22 and 23, 1987. Monsignor Bryan 0. Walsh Miami, Florida introduction: I. A Recent History of misinformation: On October 13th, 1986, Alfonso Chardy of the Miami Herald's Washington Bureau wrote: "For three years, the Reagan administration used a State Depart­ ment office to leak information to reporters as part of a sophisticated campaign to discredit Nicaragua and build con gressional support for President Reagan's Central American policies, according to administration officials and government documents. "The use of selective leaks of classified material was part of a program conceived by the administration's National Security Planning Group. That same task force also approved a recently disclosed campaign of deception that the Reagan administration mounted in August to convince Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi that he was about to be attacked by the United States........... "Although some reporters have complained of exaggeration and dis tortion, few journalists have accused the office's officials of lying and administration officials consider its operations a success One official characterized the office's operation as 2 . a 'vast psychological warfare operation.'" Miami Herald, October 13, 1986, page 12a. The head of the office was a former Miami city official, Otto Reich. Reich is an Austrian born former Cuban national who is currently U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela. According to the Miami Herald, Reich described his job as correcting some of the "tremendous m isconceptions" about the administration's goals in E l Salvador and the declassification of intelligence data so that it would reach a "variety of audiences" here and abroad. Reich grew up in Cuba and has very close connections with the Cuban exile community in Miami According to the Miami Herald, this office was set up under a secret National Security directive No. 77, Management of Public Diplomacy Relative to National Security. It was to be d irected by the NSC through four committees overseen by a so-called Special Planning Group led by the President's National Security Adviser and made up of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the d irector of the Agency for international Development. The Miami Herald had characterized the Office of Public Diplomacy "...as one of the best orchestrated public opinion campaigns ever undertaken by a U.S. government." Unlike its efforts to influence public opinion at home and abroad with regard to U.S. policies in Central America and the Caribbean, the State Department's campaign against Moammar Gadhafi ran into a barrage of criticism when the Washington Post revealed it on October 2. This revelation precipitated the resignation of State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb. According to Joseph Lai tin, ombudsman for the Washington Post, readers' anger was d irected against the Post for revealing things that were true: "There was not a shred of indignation that The Post, along with other news media, had unknowingly printed lies. It is also interesting to note that both the truth and the lies were provided by government officials" (miami Herald 10/ 12/ 8 6 ) 3 . Laitin commented: "In this recent exercise in official government deceit, it was a case of amateur night: grown men acting like children, but playing with a dangerous toy, which is disinformation— a word, incidentally coined by the Soviets that refers to the practice of slipping into the system negative stories for the purpose of confusing the enemy." Many questions, ethical and otherwise are raised by these revelations. In themselves, they really add little new to the age old question: Is it lawful for governments to deceive even their own peoples, by such tactics. W inston Churchill is quoted as saying: "--- in time of war, the truth is so precious it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies." It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss these issues. Rather the recent h istory of such activities is presented here in very brief fashion to provide the background for another case h istory, namely that of the Roman Catholic B ishops of Cuba, which covers the same time period. The thesis of this paper is that in the case of the Cuban B ishops there are enough suspicious e lements to warrant further investigation. F inal judgments must wait for such objective investigations. II. A Case H istory: The Cuban B ishops: In October 1985, three Cuban B ishops, Archbishops Jaime Ortega and Pedro Meurice and B ishop Adolfo Rodriguez accompanied by Monsignor Carlos Manuel de Cespedes came through Miami on their way to Washington to return the visit of a delegation of U.S. b ishops who had visited Cuba earlier in the year. These were the first official visits between the two Episcopal Conferences since the 1950's. While in Washington, they also met with officials of the U . S . government including E lliot Abrams, the Under Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs and Robert McFarlane, National Security Advisor to the President. The exchange of official visits between the two Episcopal conferences was one of a number of developments in church-state relations in Cuba during 4 . the same time period. February 1986 saw the convening in Havana of the f irst national meeting of the Cuban Church since the early 1960's. The Encuentro Nacional de la Iglesia Cubana was the culmination of seven years of local and regional meetings involving all sectors of the Church— b ishops, priests, religious and laity— which had grown out of the 1979 meeting of the b ishops of Latin America with Pope John Paul II in Puebla, Mexico. Cuban B ishop Azcarate, at a retreat for Cuban priests in E l Cobre in July of that year, proposed such a process and it was approved by the Cuban Episcopal Conference a few months later. Another development was the possibility of a pastoral visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II. An official invitation to the Holy Father was extended by the Cuban B ishops. Cuba and the Vatican have maintained d iplomatic relations throughout the revolution despite the severe restrictions imposed on Church activities and personnel These church events were paralleled by a renewed interest by the Cuban government signaled by the publication in Cuba of Frei Betto's book, "Fidel y La Religion” and an official invitation by the government to Pope John Paul II to visit Cuba. The significance of the publication of Frei Betto's book lay not so much in its contents, but in the fact that its publication signaled that it was proper to talk and write about religion in Cuba for the first time since the early years of the revolution. The book itself, which consists of a 22-hour long interview with the Cuban leader, extending over several days, records Castro's observations on the Catholic Church and religion, his own religious experiences as a youth and student of the Jesuits and his expectations for the future. The book is said to be the best seller of all time in Cuba. These developments in Church affairs in Cuba did not pass unnoticed in the United States, particularly in Cuban exile circles in Miami Among the political commentators in the Cuban exile media, both printed and radio, there were negative comments on each of these developments. The basic reaction is that any rapprochement between the Church and the regime is seen as being favorable to the perpetuation of the Castro government. There is a widespread suspicion of any contact with Cuba. This is not new. In 1963, when Archbishop Carroll accompanied by this writer, went to Cuba L 5 . for the funeral of Cardinal Arteaga, there was criticism claiming that even the acceptance of permission to enter Cuba made the Cuban government look benevolent. Catholic c lergy and laity who attended the ENEC meeting were criticized as was Archbishop McCarthy because he had assisted at the installation of Archbishop Jaime Ortega in 1981. While these reactions have been evident in exile circles for many years, the Washington visit by the Cuban b ishops occasioned a reaction that seems to indicate a definite campaign to influence American public opinion against the thrust of the Cuban Church in its efforts to acquired greater freedom to carry out its pastoral m ission. The opening shot in this campaign was fired by a very prominent Cuban Catholic layman in Miami Mr. Jorge Mas Canosa. He is the Chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation and also Chairman of the Radio Marti Board, with very close links to the Reagan administration. On October 18, 1985, radio station WQBA in Miami broadcast a commentary by Mr. Mas Canosa denouncing the Cuban Bishops. He a lleged that their recent visit to Washington was made "...as tools of Fidel Castro.... to try to obtain political advantages for Fidel Castro's regime." Their efforts to obtain U. S. visas for Cuban political prisoners such as Ramon Grau A lsina was dismissed as an excuse. Their support for the lifting of the Cuban trade embargo, a position endorsed by the U.S. B ishops Conference for more than twenty years, and their search for some resolution of the impasse on family reunions caused by Radio Marti were described as a "shameful m ission." Their arrival in Miami at 3 AM was described as shameful and an attempt to hide, even though every Cuban in Miami knows that that is the time of the only f light from Habana. Mr. Mas Canosa a lleged that they "....did not seek the advice of their fellow b ishops in exile, nor of the Catholic laity nor did they seek anyone's counsel inspite of their coming to a foreign etc.