New York Times ‘Disturbed’ by US Flags-But Bemedaled by Fidel Castro

Humberto Fontova Jun 12, 2021

“I was on Long Island this weekend visiting a really dear friend, and I was really disturbed. I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with explicatives [sic] against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and in some cases just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing… (New York Times Editorial Board member Mara Gay, June 8.)

“To our American friend (New York Times reporter) Herbert Matthews with gratitude. Without your help, and without the help of the New York Times, the Revolution in Cuba would never have been,” said a beaming Fidel Castro while pinning a specially minted medal on the smitten New York Times reporter at the Cuban embassy in Washington D.C. April, 1959. A week earlier the KGB asset whose lifelong obsession was the destruction of the U.S. made a special visit to the New York Times offices in New York to express the same unbounded appreciation.

If the above sounds too outrageous to be true—I invite you to study the photographic evidence of the ceremony here.

But who (familiar with Cuban history) can blame Castro? In fact, after getting their man firmly ensconced into power, they went above and beyond the call of duty by 9as we’ll see in a minute, relentlessly libeling anyone who dared speak the truth about the KGB-asset they boosted to power.   

Starting in 1957, for instance, The New York Times devoted itself to assuring readers (which included influential State Department and CIA honchos) that — unlike what those Cuban deplorables were frantically warning the CIA and U.S. State Department about — the Castro regime was in fact antiseptically free of the slightest communist taint, just as they already believed.

“Fidel Castro (who at the time led a KGB-sponsored terrorist group in Cuba known as the July 26^th movement) has strong ideas of liberty, democracy and social justice. This amounts to a new deal for Cuba, radical, democratic, and therefore anti-communist,” declared Herbert Matthews of the NYT, Feb. 1957.

Two years later, with a Cuban version of Poland’s Katyn massacre in full swing (and directed by the same Soviets for the same reason), The New York Times's veritable Herbert Matthews double-downed:

 “This is not a Communist revolution in any sense of the term. Fidel Castro is not only not a Communist, he is decidedly anti-Communist.” 

In fact, vengeance, much less justice, had nothing to do with the Communist bloodbath The New York Times was trying to camouflage. Che's murderous method in La Cabana fortress in 1959 was exactly Stalin's murderous method in the Katyn Forest in 1940. Like Stalin's Great Terror against his own officer corps a few years earlier, Che's firing squad marathons were a perfectly rational and cold-blooded exercise that served their purpose ideally. This bloodbath decapitated — literally and figuratively — the first ranks of Cuba's Contras. This is Bolshevik takeover 101, amigos.

Arthur Gardner and Earl Smith were the two U.S. ambassadors to Cuba who warned about Castro’s covert Communism (and thus lost their jobs.) In 1960 they testified under oath to the Media/State Department collusion and campaign that brought Castro to power:

Senator DODD: "You have been quoted, Mr. Gardner, as referring to, "Castro worship" in the State Department in 1957. ... you are quoted as saying you fought all the time with the State Department over whether Castro merited the support or friendship of the United States. Would you explain...."

Mr. GARDNER: "I feel it very strongly, that the State Department was influenced, first, by those stories by (the New York Times') Herbert Matthews, and soon (support for Castro) became kind of a fetish with them."

Senator DODD: (in preparation for his post) your successor as Ambassador to Cuba, Earl Smith was actually (sent by his State Dept. superiors) to be briefed by New York Times' Herbert Matthews?"

Mr. GARDNER: "Yes, that is right."

Senator EASTLAND: "Mr Smith, you had been warning the State Department that Castro was a Marxist?"

Mr. SMITH: "Yes, sir...."

Senator EASTLAND: "Would you say that the American Government then, including all of its agencies, was largely responsible for bringing Castro to power?"

Mr. SMITH: "The State Department played a large part in bringing Castro to power. The press, and other Government agencies (CIA), members of Congress are also responsible..”

One day in May 1959, only five months after the triumph of Castro’s New York Times-celebrated “anti-communist” revolution, Castro’s own Air Force Chief, Major Pedro Diaz-Lanz, told his friend Eddie Ferrer, “I’ve got to tell the Americans and the world what’s going on here and start the fight against these communists. Everybody seems asleep!”

A week later Diaz-Lanz resigned his post and declared publicly that Castro’s civilian government was a hollow sham, nothing but a front (maintained with the then-invaluable assistance of the New York Times) for Soviet-trained communists who were running the show behind the scenes, especially in the crucial functions of the military and police. Diaz-Lanz then bundled his wife and kids onto a small boat and escaped to Miami just ahead of a firing squad.

After weeks of frantically knocking on doors and hoarse from phone calls, Diaz-Lanz finally appeared at a public hearing before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. The date was July 14, 1959. 

Mr. SOURWINE (Chief Counsel): “Is Castro friendly to the United States?”

Major DIAZ: “No.”

Mr. SOURWINE: “But Fidel Castro has said on many occasions [as dutifully transcribed and transmitted by the New York Times] that he is friendly to the United States. You are saying that this is not true?”

Major DIAZ. “He is lying.”

Mr. SOURWINE: “You are completely sure that Fidel Castro is what?”

Major DIAZ: “That Fidel Castro is a communist. Also, I’m prepared because the communists have a well-known system of trying to destroy the reputations of anyone who disagrees with them.”

The following day Castro put his fingers to his mouth, blew a whistle and The New York Times scurried to duty:

“In Cuba there are no communists in positions of control,” stressed their reporter Herbert Matthews in a fresh article. “The accusations of Major Pedro Diaz- Lanz are rejected by everybody.”

But as Diaz-Lanz warned, when outing communists, their denial is only half the story. The truth-teller must also be defamed. Castro whistled again.

“Sources (obviously Castro and his henchmen) tell me that Major Diaz-Lanz was removed from his office for incompetence, extravagance and nepotism,” added Herbert Matthews in his front page New York Times article on July, 16 1959 (the very day following Diaz-Lanz’s testimony!)

Only screenwriter Rod Serling could do justice to something so tragically Twilight-Zonish:

“Imagine if you will:  …trying to alert the leaders of the world’s most powerful nation boasting the most lavishly-funded intelligence agency in human history employing the most highly-educated officials and analysts–imagine trying to convince such people that their most resolute and powerful enemies have secretly set up a base right under their nose, only 90 miles away. You were Fidel Castro’s personal pilot and head of his Revolutionary Air Force so you saw the evidence with your own eyes. Alas media “experts” on the matter who wield enormous influence over the diplomatic and intelligence services of the world’s most powerful nation—of the world’s recognized guardian against Soviet imperialism--quickly mobilize. Soon your condition differs little from that of Kevin McCarthy in the original 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'…”