Speech #960243901

I have good news and I have bad news to report. The good news is that the Central Intelligence Agency was on its toes and provided well reasoned. well supported analyses. clearly warning of the situation which has now developed. and that the Agency did this as early as last January. By January 31. the CIA concluded. and so reported. that Cuba was likely to resort to massive emigration. on the scale of 100.000 or more persons. CIA believed that in this way. Castro could relieve political pressures building up as a result of Cubas miserable economic conditions. The CIA reported: The Castro regime may again resort to largescale emigration to reduce discontent caused by Castros deteriorating economic condition. On four other separate occasions. the CIA reported similar views. using as its vehicle a variety of intelligence publications. such that one way or another word reached every rank of reader from working level to the President. By early February. the State Department learned that the Cuban Government was considering resorting to massive emigration if the United States did not move faster to process the backlog of former political prisoners awaiting exit to the United States. and deal effectively with the question of Cuban boats being hijacked to Florida. There is no question that the U.S. Government was adequately warned. The bad news is that the U.S. Government never took advantage of its leadtime. conducted a relatively weak defensive diplomatic strategy. and failed to organize for the human flood it should have known was coming. The administration recognized that the consequences of opening the doors wide would be "catastrophic"-but rather than mobilize. the United States simply suggested to Cuban officials that if they would only wait a few months until the new Refugee Act of 1980 was in place. we would begin to move people out at the rate of perhaps a thousand a month. During March. there were more Cuban threats both public and private. about a wave of emigration. On March 8. Castro stated in a speech: We hope they will adopt measures so they will not encourage the illegal departures from the country because we might also have to take our own measures.