MR. BAKER: What is unique about the Cuban military and its experience, particularly in the Latin American context?

MS. WALKER: The uniqueness within Latin America, well, one of the issues in the study of the role of the military in the region has always been the issue of what's called political control, or civil-military relations. When you had a very, say, coup-prone military in so many countries, there was never any military uprising, or signs of military discontent in Cuba. Which raises the question as to why, how come? Why is Cuba different? And in essence, my dissertation was an effort to try and address that.

BAKER: Well, let's look into some of the reasons why it is different, and how it's changed, as well. How, you know, Cuba has gone from this internationalist force, with missions in Angola and elsewhere, promoting revolution, to what today? How has it transformed itself in the last, say, decade to fifteen years?

WALKER: Well, essentially, the Cuban military has had to reinvent itself. Instead of internationalism, its activity is now focused primarily in terms of domestic activities. And since the onset of the economic crisis, that has been its role in the Cuban economy. It's been involved in agricultural production, in the manufacture of goods for its own needs, as well as for those of the civilian population. And then you have also its involvement in joint ventures, by means of Gaviota, the tourism concern.

BAKER: In terms of its military capability, I understand that it used to be quite large, quite capable. How would you characterize its change in capability and size?

WALKER: At the height of its involvement in the late eighties, you had close to 200,000 in the armed forces. Now granted, a number of those were reservists, a number of them were conscripts, but that was still a very potent force. And at this point, the military has been reduced to around 50,000 personnel, the draft has been shortened.

In terms of capabilities, the military doctrine is still about a heavy reliance upon its defensive capabilities, by using the civilian population to help support the institution. But in terms of weaponry, and in terms of equipment, that has suffered since the loss of Soviet support. They only received a few of the MIG-29 fighters that they had requested before the Soviet Union fell apart. Right now, they have resource shortages, in terms of fuel shortages, they can't conduct exercises as they'd like, they can't do as much training as they would like. Clearly, I think you can make an argument that the capabilities have suffered, in a traditional sense, yet the point is, it's difficult to say that, you can't quite make the association to say that the professionalism has also suffered. Which is somewhat unusual.

BAKER: How has their budget, as near as you can tell, changed over the last ten years?

WALKER: The military share of the national budget has fallen steadily since the onset of the 1990's. I don't recall the precise numbers of that, but what has happened is that the military has had to essentially, develop the means to fund itself, in order to reduce the drain from the civilian economy.

BAKER: In many Latin American countries, the military has a pretty poor reputation, both for lack of professionalism and lack of personal integrity and honor. How would you characterize the Cuban military, in terms of those measurements?

WALKER: The Cuban military is somewhat sub generis, because the revolutionary armed forces did not exist before the revolution. They grew out of the revolution, and developed with the revolution. And given that it is a popular revolution, an argument can be made that the revolutionary armed forces is a military that has very popular origins, as opposed to one that has evolved over the past two centuries, where you have a military elite, if you will, that has, whose sons have continued to be key players in the armed forces. That, as exists in some Latin American countries. Well, there has been a great deal of continuity within the Cuban armed forces, but that only goes back to 1959. Who knows, whether the Cuban military down the road may continue to reflect, say, the continuation of generations within the armed forces. But we aren't there yet.

BAKER: Do you have a sense for how the revolutionary armed forces are regarded by the rest of Cuban society, and the ranks in terms of institutions in Cuba?

WALKER: It's difficult to determine, to assess the view of the revolutionary armed forces by Cuban society at large. There was some information coming out—

BAKER: Sorry, I'm going to ask you to say that again. You said the view of it by the, can you just start, maybe put the public first, or the Cuban society view towards—

WALKER: Okay. It's difficult to say how the Cuban society now views the armed forces. There is some evidence that in the late 1980's there was a lot of tension developing over the Cuban military's role in Angola. I don't know if that has diminished or disappeared since the military's withdrawal from its international involvement there. There was one statement that I remember from the early nineties, where Raul Castro, the head of the armed forces, stated that recruitments were as high as ever. So this would suggest that Cuban youth continue to view the military as an avenue for upward mobility, or for, you know, for a future career. I haven't seen any information since then.

It's very, very difficult to say how the society views it. And there's also been a change in terms of the armed forces, the Ministry of the Armed Forces taking over the control of the police. And it is thought that there is considerable popular resentment against the police. So I don't know if that's redounded negatively on the military or not.

BAKER: Did you have something you wanted to add? Time out? Okay, hold the roll.

WALKER: I don't like what I said—(Tape cuts out)

BAKER: How did the Cuban military first begin to get involved in economic activities, and how has that involvement evolved?

WALKER: I believe the Cuban military has always been an economically active military, and even in the late 1960's, there was considerable involvement of members of the officer corps in the Cuban economy. But there was a shift in the early 1970's, a shift toward professionalization of the institution, much of it done with Soviet assistance. And then that was the prelude to Cuba's international involvement.

So what you have now is the retrenchment from internationalism, and what appears as a renewed interest in economic activity. So the question is, and this is a question that I've asked myself, how much continuity is there, how much change, you know, is really a reflection of the military's need to fund itself? And I don't think there are good answers out there yet.

BAKER: I understood that, on direction from Raul in '86 or '87, they began, I guess at that point, studying other economies, and began this notion of perfeccionamiento empresarial. Was there a sense, even before the Soviet Union collapsed, that something like that might be coming, and they needed, therefore, to, you know, shore up their own economic self-sufficiency?

WALKER: I found evidence that goes back to the party congress that was held in the late eighties, out of which the decision emerged that the military should try to improve its efficiency and productivity, through what's known as the business improvement system, the sistema de perfeccionamiento empresarial. Now, even at that point, which was around 1987, there were not clear signs that the Eastern block would fall apart, that let alone, that the Soviet Union would implode. So, it appears that the interest in improving the armed forces efficiency with respect to its own industries, had its origins independent of the economic crisis. However, it was a very fortuitous decision, because the economic crisis made clear that the changes that were being considered at that time were important.

BAKER: And what are some examples of the types, I mean, we've talked generally about economic activities. What are some of the companies, and what are they doing, that they're getting the Cuban military is associated with?

WALKER: The most important of the companies with which the Cuban military is associated is the joint venture known as the Gaviota Tourism Group. It's an anonymous society, which essentially means that the stockholders are not known. In Latin America they're called sociedades anonimas. But by means of this, there's enough information out there that clearly links the armed forces with Gaviota, and they are involved in building hotels, they're involved in the transport of tourists by air through the republic. Naval excursions, or maritime excursions with tourists. It's amazing, how they've been able to build that organization.

BAKER: Now, you paint a picture that comes to mind of men in uniform, you know, waiting on tables, and building hotels and naval ships with tourists on them. And one experience there was that you hardly ever see actual uniformed officers, except in an occasional kind of elite managerial role, and then it's mostly civilian staff. Are the members of the military themselves making up the bulk of the workforce for these companies?

WALKER: I think the military themselves are not the men who are waiting the tables, or women. But they have used the structure of Gaviota as a means to, as an economic resource. In the early 1990's, as Gaviota was really taking off, no pun intended, you had a number of retired officers moving into the leadership of the organization. And last year, the man who was the head of Cuba's military industries assumed the presidency of Gaviota. I believe that he did so by retiring, but I can't say for sure, because I haven't seen any information for sure, to say he's retired.

BAKER: And that would be, you don't want to say, or?

WALKER: I don't remember his name.

BAKER: Benitez is the one that—

WALKER: No, Tomas Benitez is gone.

BAKER: That's the one that they flushed out.

WALKER: Yeah.

BAKER: I have it written down; you told it to me once, and I have it written down. We saw no trace of this individual. There are some others that I was intrigued to at least read about. By the way, Julio Granza confirmed that the TR de Caribe chain was a part of Gaviota.

WALKER: Oh, it's under Gaviota? Interesting.

BAKER: I mean, I asked him about it, and he said oh, yeah, that's under Gaviota, just an off-hand comment.

WALKER: So it's really an umbrella.

BAKER: And some of these other things, the Turcomex, and Turcono, whatever, I can't even pronounce them, but they're another—

WALKER: I haven't seen information on those in probably three years, any references to those.

BAKER: Okay, so that was kind of gleaning just a— I mean here, we think of national security and the military's role as war and peace, and whether that's, you know, strictly defending our borders, or, you know, as we've seen, extending that notion quite far. It's about, the military is tasked with, mostly with war fighting activities. Is it possible that in Cuba, where the struggle for survival has often been linked to economic, that they see involvement in economic security as part of the broader continuum of their defense of the country as a whole?

WALKER: I think that if you asked a Cuban leader, the response would be that economic security is a human right, to the extent that the military can help guarantee that economic security, which was a mission actually assigned to it by Fidel Castro in '91. To the extent that the military helps in that regard, it is helping Cubans realize their human rights. Now this is a perspective that's quite different from that in much of the Western world. But I think that it's a perspective that they're quite sincere about.

BAKER: I want to get into some of the specifics about Cuban officers studied and incorporated many of these tenets of free marketism, such as Deming's Total Quality Management. And came up with this term, you've referred to it before, perfeccionamiento empresarial. Can you tell us more about that term, what it means in the Cuban context? Is that just their word for, you know, Western business practices that have been long established, or is there some unique je no se qua (phonetic) about that term?

WALKER: There's no good translation of perfeccionamiento. The best that you can come to in English would probably be improvement. But the notion of perfeccionamiento is the notion of trying to reach perfection. This has entailed a process known under the Cuban rubric of rationalization. It has attempted to improve managerial control over enterprises, in order to achieve greater efficiency and productivity. To be able to say what's different about the Cuban model, as opposed to what Deming writes of Total Quality Management, I really can't say. I know that the Cubans have studied Deming, and have likely taken from his work what they deem relevant to their situation.

BAKER: What do you make of the fact that these business practices associated with free markets, and all the implications they have for a centralized socialist economy, are being introduced by the armed forces of the revolution? Not that they were there to start the revolution, but they have been the defenders of the revolution. I mean, is there something--?

WALKER: Last year the Cubans decided to extend the business improvement system to a select number of civilian-run state enterprises. And the rationale for doing so was because the experiments, which had initially been conducted in a select few of the military's enterprises, the experiments proved successful. They were indeed able to achieve greater efficiency. They were indeed able to produce more, at lesser cost, of course.

The question is, or the question that strikes me, is whether this model will work in a civilian sphere. The organization of entities within the armed forces is quite different from what often exists in the civilian world. Even if it is a state-run economy. And that leads me to the question, or it raises the question for me as to whether this model can be successfully replicated in civilian enterprises. I suspect, well, considering that Deming developed these for capitalist enterprises, I suspect that there will be improvements achieved, but I don't know if they'll quite reach the extent enjoyed by the armed forces.

BAKER: It seems to me that the broad implications of these reforms are threatening, in many ways, to their system, particularly as they impact on employment. In other words, if someone's not efficient, or not producing, you get rid of them. Or if you have too many people working, you downsize. And people being promoted on the basis of productivity and skill, rather than seniority. I mean, all these things go against the very grain of some of the established notions of a socialist economy. Is it, the fact that it is the armed forces, the FAR, that's spreading these Western-style practices, does that help to make it safe?

WALKER: That the armed forces is now implementing these Western business methods makes it a little bit safer, as you suggest. But—

BAKER: Rephrase that. I'm not going to even be in the show, so, as I suggest isn't going to be there. I'm asking, let me just, I've wrote out more, I'll just read it for you. Because I'm thinking this through, too. But in other words, if these ideas had come from a university or some academics, might they have been, you know, branded as subversive, or counterrevolutionary? But coming from the military kind of gives them cover, considered an official stamp of approval.

WALKER: Greater credibility.

BAKER: It's like well, if the military's doing it, it must be okay, whereas some, you know, subversive academic, these are dangerous ideas.

WALKER: Yeah. I think it's important that, to know and understand that these reforms, specifically with respect to the business improvement system, I think it's important to notice that they came from within the armed forces, that they were ideas supported by Raul Castro, the chief of the armed forces. It gives them greater credibility.

And it's also important to note that the experiments were carried out within the armed forces, on a very small, select basis initially. And it's only after having been tried and tested that the military began to expand their use, or increase their use within the armed forces, and only now, well over a decade after they were first introduced. The decision has been made to try it, and see how it works in the civilian sector.

BAKER: Are there other reasons you see the military, the Cuban military, being allowed to incorporate and spread these market-oriented practices? For example, does it make their possible dangerous consequences, if I may use that phrase again, easier to control? MS. WALKER: The dangerous consequences of?

BAKER: If it shows that, you know, yeah, these essentially counterrevolutionary business practices are what we need, and make things more efficient, if that were, I mean, once they introduce that to the civilian sector, is it any harder to reign in, should it start, you know, I don't know where I'm going. It just seems like it's a laboratory, it's a controlled laboratory in the military, and if it doesn't work, they can put a cap on it.

WALKER: They have a ten year, it still is, it still is, because they've introduced it, as I understand, they've introduced it only at select civilian enterprises. It hasn't been endorsed completely. I mean, not all businesses, or not all state-owned enterprises are employing these methods. But only the select few, and those have been likely selected because of the expectation that they will be more successful in implementing them. Perhaps it's because of an existing structure, prior changes that have been carried out within the organization. Perhaps it's selected based on the priorities assigned any given producer. Which is more important; producing hotel carts, or producing clothing?

It's, I mean, so those may have been some of the criteria that were taken into account in making the decisions as to which civilian firms would be subjects for the experiment. But I don't think that the Cubans would have ventured forth with this, particularly at this time, because this is not a phase, if you will, in the revolution where there are extensive reforms taking place. Rather, the pace of reform since the mid-1990's has slowed down considerably. And I daresay that it was with a very careful calculus that the Cubans made the decision to try this in the civilian sector.

BAKER: By the way, I recall them saying 800 of 3,000 civilian enterprises were currently working at adapting these principles. Is it, I mean, you talk about very slow, cautious reforms. Looking around the world, Cuba can look at what happened in the Soviet Union, with a rapid switch to free marketism that, and the disastrous consequences. I mean, they can look at a lot of models in Latin America that have their own problems. Does it make sense for them to take what may seem to be extremely cautious steps, since there, there aren't any models out there for them to really follow?

WALKER: The cautious steps that have been taken in Cuba are steps that have been necessary for the survival of the revolution. You have to keep in mind that one of the policies that, if you will, led to Gorbachev's demise included Glasnost as well as Perestroika. Perestroika was the economic aspect of reform, but Glasnost was political reform. Cuba has maintained itself firm that it will not tolerate political reforms going hand in hand with economic change. And the question is, because there aren't good models out there, is whether this is possible.

BAKER: Okay.