Major Guevara, in your speech to the General Assembly day before yesterday, you accused
the United States of helping Cuba's neighbors prepare new aggression against her.
We in turn have often accused your government of abetting subversion in other Latin American
countries.
Do you see any way out of this situation, any way to improve relations?
I think with regards to solutions, there are solutions and I think there is only one.
We have said repeatedly to the government of the US that we do not want anything but
to forget us, that they do not consider us even for good or evil.
From New York City, Face the Nation, a spontaneous and unrehearsed news interview with Ernesto
Che Guevara, Cuban Minister of Industry, Major Guevara will be questioned by CBS News United
Nations correspondent Richard C. Hotlett, Ted Schultz of the Washington Bureau of the
New York Times, and CBS News correspondent Paul Nevin.
Major Guevara, we have more questions about Cuba's relations with this country and with
the communist countries and about your own internal situation.
We'll resume in just a moment.
Have you ever wondered what makes people respond, what causes them to react?
And remember, it's a pretty important question for an actor.
We're not up on stage just to play a part.
We're on stage or in front of a camera in order to bring you a message, a human message,
sometimes a very simple message, but always one that we hope you'll understand.
Here is such a message.
This is the Christmas seal, a message that means life in the fight against tuberculosis
and other respiratory diseases.
This Christmas, be sure to use this Christmas seal on all your holiday mail.
Answer your Christmas seal letter as soon as it comes, and then use the seals generously
on cards, letters, and even gift packages.
That's my message.
I hope you'll receive it and respond generously.
Thank you.
Major Guevara, you said a moment ago you would simply like us Americans to forget Cuba.
Your speech the other day suggested that you can't forget us.
You consider us a hostile government 90 miles away.
How can you expect us to forget you?
I didn't say exactly that I expected to forget us.
You ask a solution, and I said what was that solution in the present moment.
If it's possible or not, that's another question.
Major Guevara, on several opportunities recently, Premier Fidel Castro has suggested in interviews
with visiting newspaper men and on other occasions that a new effort be made to normalize relations
between Cuba and the United States, particularly in the field of trade and exchanges.
As an economist, do you feel yourself that the resumption of relations of this nature
would be useful or welcome for Cuba?
In other words, would you like to see the relations normalized?
Not as an economist, because I have never considered myself an economist, but only
an official of the Cuban government as another Cuban.
I think harmonious relations with the U.S. would be very good for us from the economical
point of view, more than in any other field, because our industry has been established
by the U.S. and primary products and repair parts that we have to make with much difficulty
or to bring from other areas could come directly.
And besides, sugar, which traditionally we had the American market, is also near.
Major, if my recollection is right, in 1960 you made several speeches, particularly one
in March of 1960, saying that for Cuba to go on selling sugar to the United States
was a form of colonialism to which Cuba was subjected.
Have you changed your mind about this?
Naturally, because those were different conditions, sold sugar with specific conditions established
by American bias, which in turn dominated the internal market and production in Cuba.
Now if we would sell sugar to the U.S., it would be the Cuban government, the one who
would sell it, and it would be a complete profit for our people.
Dr. Guevara, Washington has said that there are two political conditions for the establishment
of normal relations between the United States and Cuba.
One is the abandonment of your military commitment to the Soviet Union.
The other is the abandonment of the policy of exporting revolution to Latin America.
Do you see any chance of a change in either of these points?
Absolutely.
We don't put no condition of any kind to the U.S.
We don't want it to change its system.
We don't want this racial discrimination to cease in the U.S.
We put no conditions to the establishment of relations, but we neither put conditions
to...
But my question was whether you would accept these conditions placed by the United States
on the resumption of normal relations.
We will not accept any conditions from the U.S.
We will not accept conditions imposed by the U.S. to us.
But in the matter of the missiles, the Russian missiles on Cuba and the Cuban military relations
with the Soviet Union, how can the United States be sure that Cuba is not a strategic
threat once again?
Would you accept United Nations inspection or inspection by the Organization of American
States if you do not permit American on-site inspection of Cuba?
You talked about the Organization of American States yesterday, the day before yesterday,
the Colombian delegate spoke about the orbit of the OAS.
It is, in effect, an orbit which durates around the U.S.
An inspection by such delegates would be an inspection by the U.S.
You talk about that the United States don't feel secure.
And we ask the U.S. do we ourselves feel secure that we have no missiles against Cuba?
Then cannot we reach an harmonious solution?
Because the countries are equal in the world.
Let's inspect all bases, atomic bases of the U.S.
And let's inspect also what we have in Cuba.
And if you want, let's liquidate all atomic bases in Cuba and in the U.S. and we are in
complete agreement with that.
Major Guevara, are you, in fact, trying to export your revolution?
Are you everyday shipping arms to other Latin American countries?
Are you bringing revolutionaries from other countries to Cuba, training them, sending
them home?
I also had an opportunity to say at the assembly, and I can repeat it emphatically now, revolutions
are not exportable.
Revolutions are created by oppressive conditions, which Latin American countries exercise against
their peoples.
And there comes rebellion.
And afterwards, new Cubas will emerge.
We are not the ones who create revolutions.
It's the imperialist system and its allies, internal allies, the ones who create revolutions.
But does not your attitude toward the present government of Venezuela, which is considered
in many other countries leftist and progressive, suggest that you consider any government oppressive,
which is not communist?
In absolute no.
What we consider is that the Venezuelan government is not a leftist government, has nothing of
a leftist government.
It's an oppressor, an oppressive government, is a murderer.
He murders them in the peasant fights in the region of Falcon, for example, where there
are military advisors of the U.S.
There is, in Venezuela today, in spite of the American press does not review it.
The Venezuelan government is not a leftist government.
Is there any government in this hemisphere which Cuba considers to be progressive?
The word progressive is an ambiguous word.
There is one government which we keep diplomatic relations, the government of Mexico, with
which we have good relations.
Our systems are different.
We respect their system.
We are in complete harmony up to the date, and I have the hope that it will continue
like that.
But if you ask me the image of Latin America, there are some countries which oppress their
peoples much more, and among the least oppressive, among those which we could have perfectly
normal relations, without any difficulties.
We could have Uruguay, Chile, maybe Costa Rica, but the U.S. do not permit us.
But all these countries have broken diplomatic relations with Cuba.
Don't you feel yourself isolated when you have no friend at all in this hemisphere?
We have a lot of friends, but not among the government.
The friends are in the peoples, and in the last instance the peoples will be the rulers
of those states.
If we may change the geographic scene over friendships or no friendships in the world,
you made a visit to Moscow in November last month, since the change in the Soviet leadership.
We've had the impression here that the government of Cuba had taken a rather unclear position
on the difficulties between the Soviet Union and China ideologically.
Could you tell us whether as a result of your visit, is it clear or easier for the government
of Cuba to adopt a clear position in relation to the Soviet-Chinese problem?
You can have the impression that our attitude is not clear, but we have the country impression.
Our attitude is very clear.
In effect, there is a conflict, an ideological conflict, which we all know.
We have stated our position in the sense of unity among social states.
Unity has a first measure, and always we argue that unity is necessary, because this unity
goes in favor of the US, which are our enemy, and everything that goes in favor of the enemy
must be eliminated.
That's why we are in favor of unity.
We feel that there is a necessity to strengthen this unity, and that it will be strengthened,
and then the monolithic block of socialist countries will be formed again.
Early this year, I believe it was first in March, then again in June, the Soviet government,
which then had Premier Khrushchev at its head, issued invitations to a number of communists
or Marxist-Leninist parties in the world, including to the Cuban Socialist Party, or
rather the Cuban part of the Socialist Revolution, to attend a preparatory meeting in Moscow
of communist parties.
My memory is that the Cuban party was one of the very few never-to-have-answered-the-question,
the invitation, rather.
We see today that the Soviet government has renewed the invitation for a March preparatory
meeting of communists or Marxist-Leninist countries.
Would your government now accept or your party would now accept the Soviet invitation?
It will be started in the proper moment, and will give the answer.
This is an invitation which is not made to the government, but to the party, and the
party is the one who has to answer.
I am here representing the government now.
Major Guevara, you are probably the outstanding exponent of guerrilla war in the western
hemisphere, and you have said that the problems of revolution in Latin America will be settled
by bullets rather than by ballots, and in general, your dynamic approach to these things
seems to run much closer to the communist line, to the Chinese communist line.
Also, Cuba has never signed the treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the outer atmosphere,
in the atmosphere, and in the sea.
This is also the Chinese communist position.
Doesn't that put you really in terms of your practical behavior and policy on the Chinese
side of the communist fence?
Well, there are three or four questions merged in one.
I'll try to answer one by one.
In the first place, there is a statement I would like to deny, or maybe the translation
wasn't accurate.
I heard, you said, I am the representative of guerrilla in this hemisphere.
I am not the representative of guerrilla in this hemisphere.
I would say that the representative would be Fidel Castro, which was the leader of our
revolution, and who had the most outstanding role in the direction of the revolutionary
struggle and the strategy of the Cuban government.
As regards the two other specific questions, we do not have to participate in the controversy
because they are very specific problems.
The problem of peaceful transition to socialism, we do not discuss it as a theoretical question.
But in America, it is very difficult, and it's near the impossible.
That is why, specifically in America, we say that the road to the liberation of peoples,
which will be the road of socialism, will go through bullets in almost all countries.
And I can make a prophecy with tranquility that you will see it.
With regards to the problem of the signing of the new test ban treaty, we welcomed that
step as a measure which tended to prevent the aggravation of tensions.
But we pointed out very clearly that us, with a military-American base in our territory
where there could be any sort of weapons, where we have to endure every kind of provocations.
We have to support and endure the flights over our territory.
We cannot sign that treaty because it would be a treason to our people.
That's independently to the fact that we welcome the treaty in its worldwide terms as beneficial
to the world, but only a step.
We cannot remain here.
We must continue forward if we want to prevent a world war.
You have been, over the years, I believe, a very articulate and candid critic yourself
of that which was occurring with the Cuban economy.
I have read your speeches in which you have criticized the errors in policies and errors
in judgments.
Now that you're approaching the seventh year of your revolution, would you try to assess
for us briefly just what is happening to the economy in your country?
Do you feel that you might begin to rise from the point where you have you been?
What projection of the economy would you make for 1965?
Will it be the seventh linear or not necessarily?
That's a very difficult question to answer in a very short moment.
I am being bombed by the questions of all kinds.
I'll try to be very concise and try to explain to the American people.
We had a great number of mistakes in the economic field, naturally.
I am not the critic.
It is Fidel Castro, the one who has criticized repeatedly the mistakes we have made.
And he has explained why we have made them.
We did not have a previous preparation.
We made mistakes in agriculture.
We made mistakes in industry.
All these mistakes are being settled now.
In industry, we are now concentrating our best effort in trying to make plants work
at a maximum capacity, trying to replace the equipment, which is in bad conditions due
to lack of spare parts of the U.S., and that we cannot get from the U.S., to extend our
industry later on the basis of our primary resources, and to lessen our dependence on
external markets, and dedicate our efforts in 1965 to the aspect of security and hygiene
of work, to make our plants better for the worker.
That the worker may feel really a man there.
We have taken plants from the capitalist system where the most important thing was to produce,
especially in Cuba.
I do not imply that in the U.S. plants, industrial plants, are now places of exploitation where
man is oppressed.
I know that there are a great number of advantages here for the American worker, but those advantages
in Cuba had not reached, and conditions are very bad, very unhealthy.
We have to dedicate our efforts to better the life, the time, passed by the worker in
the industrial plant.
That will be one of our main efforts during the next year.
Thank you.
We have some more questions about the internal situation in Cuba when we resume in a moment.
When you get in your car, what's the first thing you do?
Put the key in the ignition, adjust the mirror, release the handbrake, and drive, right?
Wrong.
Dead wrong.
If you didn't include buckling your seat belt as part of your routine.
Here's why.
According to the National Safety Council, four out of five accidents happen within 25 miles
of home.
That means while you drive, even short distances from home, you're vulnerable to maiming accidents,
even death.
But when you buckle your seat belt, you have an extra margin of safety between you, the
wheel, the dash, and windshield of your car.
See what we mean?
So every time you get in your car, do this.
Put the key in the ignition, adjust the mirror, release the handbrake, and make it a habit.
Always buckle your seat belt.
Dr. Guevara, you have protested against the presence of the American Naval Base at Guantanamo
and the continued American reconnaissance overflights over Cuba.
Will you take any military action, either against the base or the planes?
We had to explain at the assembly the other day that we do not post.
We know the power of the U.S.
We do not fool ourselves about this power.
We say that the U.S. government wants us to pay a very high price for this unstable piece
we enjoy today.
And the price we are in a position to pay comes only to the frontiers of dignity, not beyond.
If we had to kneel in order to live in peace, they will have to kill us before.
If they do not want to go to that point, we will continue to living in the best way possible,
that is, in this not-peaceful coexistence that we have today with the U.S.
What does that mean in terms of practical diplomacy, Major?
What do you propose to do?
We have denounced in all assemblies, in all places where we have had the opportunity to
speak, the illegality of flights and the fact that there is a base against the will of the
Cuban people.
Furthermore, we have denounced the great number of violations, of provocations from that base
according to little rough statistics for provocations every day.
And we have asked the non-aligned countries and the General Assembly of the U.N. to take
measures to prevent things like these.
Can we turn very briefly now to some of the internal political problems in Cuba about
which we hear in this country in a very indirect way and we are intrigued by them.
We read recently that an outstanding member of the former communist party of Cuba, former
Senator Hordoki, had in place under arrest.
We have heard a great deal about the tensions between the so-called online communist party
and the 26th of July movement type of group.
We learned on Tuesday that Major Martinez Sanchez, who was a close friend and companion
of you and Dr. Castro, tried to commit suicide.
What is happening internally in Cuba?
There is nothing happening, which we cannot say publicly.
The fact of the attempted suicide by Augusto Martinez was explained in a concise and exact
form by our government in a communique.
There is absolutely nothing else to add.
I understand that the American people has a right, and especially the press, which is
not very friendly to us, to make all suppositions and ideas about this fact, this grazed fact.
There is always the possibility of all sorts of speculations on this, but the fact is as
we expressed it.
Augusto Martinez Sanchez was separated due to administrative problems, and his reaction
was to attempt suicide.
We regret it because of him, and we regret it because of the revolution, because it has
given foot to these speculations.
With regards to the arrest of Mr. Hordoki, we also stated publicly what we were able to
say at that moment, and we have expressed that in the proper opportunity, everything
will be explained, or Mr. Hordoki will have a public satisfaction.
All our public documents reflect our absolute truth.
Major, may I ask you what percentage of the people of Cuba support the revolution?
Well, there is a joke which you made with you circulated.
I don't know if you want to refer to the joke about the Castro brothers.
We have ten seconds.
In ten seconds, it's very difficult.
In this moment, we do not have elections, but a great majority of Cuban people support
this government.
Thank you, Major Navarro, for being here to face the nation.
We'll have a concluding word in a moment.
Cuban playing and learning at the same time, one more slowly than the others, for he is
mentally retarded, but he can learn.
He can be helped.
The mentally retarded can if they receive special help from special teachers in special
classrooms.
To help the 5,600,000 mentally retarded persons in America today takes time, love, and money.
With time, love, and money, many of the mentally retarded can earn their own living, grow
into happy, useful citizens, taxpayers, not tax burdens.
Remember, retarded children can be helped, helped by giving to your local unit of the
National Association for Retarded Children.
Today on Face the Nation, Ernesto Che Guevara, Cuban Minister of Industry, was interviewed
by CBS News United Nations correspondent Richard C. Hotlett, Ted Schultz of the Washington
Bureau of the New York Times, and CBS News correspondent Paul Nevin.
Next week, another prominent figure in the news will Face the Nation.
Face the Nation was broadcast live from New York City.
The Post Office Department asked you to shop and mail earlier this year.
Your cooperation will help us move the mountain of mail we'll be delivering to you during
the Christmas rush.
Moving such a massive amount of mail is a big job.
But with your help, the thousands of United States postal workers will get the mail delivered
to you by Christmas Day.
We encourage you to shop early so that you can take advantage of a good selection of
gifts and cards.
Also the mail early, thus assuring on-time delivery.
And finally, be sure to use your zip code on all your parcels, cards, and letters.
You'll put zip into your Christmas mail and help your postman, too.
And now, from all of us at the Post Office Department, a very merry Christmas and a
happy and healthy New Year.
Pablo Casel's discusses his life on the hour-long CBS News Special Salute to the Great Musician
tomorrow night at 10, 9 Central Time on the CBS Television Network.
