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rations for the talks: Reagan and Haig vide an opportunity for a discreet tagonists to each other in his library, and
kept most of the U.S. government out meeting between Castro and Reagan. then left them to talk privately, aided
of the loop; an unmarked car was used But, according to one of the conference only by a Cuban translator.
to ferry Haig from the U.S. Embassy to organizers, Andres Rozental (now The house, according to family
the private home of Mexican Foreign Mexican ambassador to Great Britain), members, had no secret taping system.
Minister Jorge Castaneda; and Haig and U.S. officials balked when they learned Yet, the Top Secret 38-page transcript
Rodriguez agreed this would be an un- Castro was scheduled to attend. If Fi- of the discussion, which Vice President
official, secret meeting. Yet it quickly del came, Reagan wouldn t, Rozental Rodriguez provided in Spanish to the
leaked to the Spanish magazine El Pais, recalls being told. Although Mexico Soviet ambassador to Havana in De-
and then to the Mexican and U.S. press. had long resisted U.S. pressure to iso- cember 1981, suggests that the meet-
In a televised interview with CBS News late Cuba, Lopez-Portillo was forced to ing may in fact have been recorded
in January 1982, Reagan admitted that call Castro and essentially disinvite him. perhaps by the Cuban interpreter. In any
such a meeting had, in fact, occurred.2 Castro understood immediately, event, the existence of an apparently
Moreover, since the 1984 publica- Rozental remembers, and graciously verbatim record allows historians to
tion of Haig s memoirs,3 historians agreed not to make it an issue. 5 chart the issues, diplomatic positions,
have had a U.S. version of the Mexico Instead of the summit, Lopez- and tenor of the discussion.
meeting. Haig s rendition of events, and Portillo invited the Cuban leader to a The central issue on Haig s agenda
his summary of the substance of the private meeting on the island of was Cuba s alleged role in supporting
talks, generally comports to the Cuban Cozumel in July. The two talked about the Sandinista government in Nicara-
version printed in this issue of the Bul- a potential U.S.-Cuban dialogue. gua and funneling aid to the El Salva-
letin (although it omits discussion of Through Mexico, Castro passed the doran guerrillas. Drawing on what he
how the secret meeting came to occur message that he was willing to discuss called volumes, records of radio broad-
in the first place). This Cuban tran- all outstanding issues with Washington. casts, data from technical reconnais-
script originally in Spanish, translated Haig and other administration sance ... photographs, Haig charged
into Russian, obtained by scholars from hardliners, however, forcefully opposed that Cuba, in tacit agreement with the
the Russian archives and now translated talks with Cuba as anathema to a strat- Soviets, was fueling revolution in Cen-
into English provides new details, as egy of raising Castro s level of anxiety tral America. We regard this as a seri-
well as the flavor of the discussion and through verbal threats and U.S. military ous threat to our vital interests and the
COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN 219
of continuing talks, and that conduct- the Central America conflict escalated
interests of peace and stability in the
ing an even more direct exchange of dramatically in the months and years
hemisphere, he stated.
opinions would be desirable. Haig, at that followed, and for most of the de-
In response, Rodriguez spent con-
his own initiative, suggested that spe- cade, Nicaragua and El Salvador were
siderable time and detail attempting to
cial U.S. envoy General Vernon Walters wracked with the violence and blood-
refute the U.S. evidence of Cuban in-
visit Havana for additional talks. We shed that Mexico had hoped could be
volvement in revolutionary movements
can meet, in turn, in Havana and New avoided if the Reagan Administration
from Central America to Africa. I am
York, because, in my view, we must and Castro s government could achieve
aware that the Secretary of State is a
commence a dialogue immediately, a modus vivendi.
great lover of philosophy, he said to
Haig is recorded as saying at the close Yet, the fact that the Haig-
Haig, noting that
of the meeting. I believe that this is Rodriguez talks occurred at all may well
Since the time of Hume, it has been
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