NARRATOR: It's a calm morning in Havana, Cuba. On a quiet residential street, people line up at a government bakery. In historic old Havana, school children make their way through the narrow streets. At a nearby urban renewal project, painters apply a fresh coat of paint to a weathered building.

Yet, a few miles outside of Havana, cadets at Cuba's Antonio Maceo military academy are training for war.

It's been nearly a decade since the end of the Cold War, but communist Cuba is still locked in a confrontation with the world's mightiest military power.

GEN. ROSALES DEL TORO: "One aspect that you must never forget, for Cuba, the Cold War has not ended, it's colder than ever, it hasn't changed for us."

NARRATOR: The lingering hostility that exists between the U.S. and Cuba was dramatically highlighted recently when the Cuban air force shot down two civilian planes off the coast of Cuba.

Three weeks earlier, a small plane carrying a U.S. delegation and our TV crew, flew through the same airspace where the tragic shoot down occurred.

The delegation of former U.S. diplomats and retired senior military officers was on a fact finding mission to review controversial issues that strain U.S.-Cuban relations.

At the Cuban military headquarters, just off Revolutionary Square in Havana, Admiral Eugene Carroll and former Ambassador Robert White met with high ranking Cuban military officers.

One topic that surfaced early in the talks, was the issue of airspace violations and provocative acts by Cuban exile groups based in Florida.

GEN. TOMAYO: "recently, we have checked violations of our airspace by small aircraft coming from the U.S. territory. They have come here, they have violated our airspace, dropping leaflets and propaganda, which is a flagrant violation of our sovereignty."

NARRATOR: The Cubans were referring to some 10 violations of Cuban airspace by groups like the Miami based "Brother's to the Rescue" that have occurred in the last 2 years.

CARROLL: "we were warned while we were in Havana that they were considering shooting down these airplanes and this could happen because they wouldn't tolerate it."

NARRATOR: Particularly galling to the Cubans, was the failure of the U.S. government to enforce its own laws.

GEN. ROSALES DEL TORO: "This has to do with an aircraft, which flies out of Miami with authorization of the air traffic control, and is closely monitored and followed. It has to do with a violation that takes place, a violation of our sovereignty. Then the pilot goes back to Miami, meets the press, holds a press conference, and explains what he has just done...that he has flown over Havana..that he has dropped leaflets calling people to action."

NARRATOR: On one occasion a "Brother's to the Rescue" plane allegedly buzzed the Presidential Palace and dropped leaflets along the Havana coastline.

Upon returning from Cuba, Admiral Carroll notified officials at the State Department and U.S. intelligence agencies about the Cubans' concerns.

This turned out to be no surprise because, the Cuban government had previously filed numerous protests at the State Department.

WHITE: "I went and looked at the notes that the Cuban government has sent to the Department of State, there are dozens, literally dozens of notes protesting the overflights saying please curb the overflights, please enforce your own law' Our response, and I looked at these responses, is simply we're working on it please be patient and prudent". In other words, this is not the proper response of a great power."

ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT - FEB. 26th, 1996:
NEWS ANCHOR PETER JENNINGS: "More than thirty years after the Cuban revolution and the first American attempt to eliminate Fidel Castro, it is now the Clinton Administration's turn to be locked in a confrontation with this tiny island, ninety miles off the U.S. coast.'"

NARRATOR: The February shoot down was only the latest chapter in a saga of hostility and isolation that characterize the troubled relationship between the United States and Cuba.

In the aftermath of this seemingly foreseeable event, President Clinton seized the moment to tighten the trade embargo against Cuba, the same trade embargo that has been in place for 34 years. President Clinton also yielded full authority to Congress to set and carry out U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba, even though that is his responsibility under the Constitution.

WHITE: "Under the present circumstances, it is impossible for the Department of State to respond to the Cuban government as our foreign policy interests would dictate."

NARRATOR: The result of the shoot down has been to put U.S. Cuban relations "on ice", and firmly in the hands of hard liners in both countries.

WHITE: "Basically, Cuban policy is a reciprocal of U.S. policy. If the U.S. relaxes and takes it easy, then Cuba relaxes and you have good results such as the private businesses that are now flourishing in Cuba. When the U.S. turns the screws on Cuba and makes it hard for---tries to punish Cuba at that point they become very defensive."

NARRATOR: Immediately following news of the recent shoot down, relatives and friends gathered. They waited anxiously to learn the fate of the downed pilots.

The scene is eerily reminiscent of a vigil held by Cuban exiles in Miami in 1961, following the failed U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

It was the Bay of Pigs debacle, more than any other event, that set the tone for the hostile relationship that remains between the U.S. and Cuba to this day.

On April 17th, 1961, Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA at a base in friendly Guatemala, landed on the southern coast of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

While in Cuba, we interviewed Gen. Enrigue Carrara Ronas, who in 1961 was a member of Castro's revolutionary air force. He was in charge of a bomber squadron that saw action during the CIA backed invasion.

GEN. CARRARA: "It took us about a half hour for our planes to reach the Bay of Pigs -- and when we arrived we received heavy antiaircraft fire from the ships in the region. I immediately ordered an attack on the small ships that were putting troops ashore and the big ship that was in the bay. That ship, we later found out, was called the Houston, and had a battalion of men on board. We neutralized it with a bomb and they couldn't put any troops ashore."

NARRATOR: Within 72 hours of the landing the CIA's entire Cuban exile army was either killed or captured.

GEN. CARRARA:"We lost a lot of good people there because of the absurdity of the CIA. They wanted to destroy our revolution, the revolution of the people, and the revolution of our country."

NARRATOR: While armed intervention failed to accomplish any U.S. goals, it did establish a pattern that would serve both pro and anti-Castro elements in the United States.

For years Castro has used U.S. attempts to subvert Cuban sovereignty to rally support for his regime by fanning the flames of nationalism, while anti-Castro groups use the incidents, like the shoot down, as a lever to force U.S. foreign policy closer to their agenda.

WHITE: "The most important thing you can know about Cuba is that its extremely nationalistic, and very jealous about its independence, and here I'm talking about the people-not the government, the biggest advantage that Castro has is the Cuban peoples nationalism, and their rejection of people in Miami dictating to them or trying to dictate to them what their best interests are."

NARRATOR: Castro exploited the anxiety created by the Bay of Pigs attack to put Cuba in a constant state of alert, thereby increasing his power on the island.

He soon found a willing partner in his hostility toward America in the Soviet Union. Already Cuba's trading partner, the Soviet union began to supply Cuba with military weapons such as patrol boats, tanks and MIG fighter jets.

By 1962 relations between The United States and Cuba had eroded to the point that Castro permitted what to most Americans was inconceivable.

Archival Footage
President Kennedy: "Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact, that a series of offensive missile sites, is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases, can be none other, than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western hemisphere."

NARRATOR: For ten frightening days, tensions between the United States and Cuba threatened to plunge the world into global nuclear war. American reconnaissance planes had detected Soviet launch sites for nuclear tipped missiles that could reach deep into the heart of America.

Archival Footage
PRESIDENT KENNEDY: "It will be the policy of this nation, to regard any nuclear missile, launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western hemisphere, as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."

NARRATOR: In 1962, General Arnaldo Tomayo of the Cuban Air Force, was a young fighter pilot stationed outside of Havana. We asked him what it was like during the crisis.

GEN. TOMAYO: "I remember during that crisis we had nuclear strike missiles here and North American reconnaissance planes were observing those missile facilities.... we made patrols around our coasts and worried about an armed conflict on a great level, and if that would have happened it would have been a catastrophe. Not only for Cuba and the U.S., but for the whole area. So those moments, those nervous moments I remember very intensely."

NARRATOR: In Cuba, Castro used the superpower confrontation to mobilize hundreds of thousands of men to repel an invasion. The waterfront in Havana bristled with gun emplacements.

ADM. CARROLL: "during the Cuban missile confrontation I was commanding officer of a nuclear capable jet attack squadron aboard a carrier in the region ready to go to war if the crisis degenerated into conflict."

NARRATOR: Retired Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll is deputy director of the Center for Defense Information. He was stationed on a ship just off the coast of Cuba.

ADM. CARROLL: "At the time of the Cuban Missile confrontation there were actually Soviet forces, soviet missiles with nuclear warheads in Cuba. We were just a matter of a few minutes from some sort of a nuclear catastrophe. There were Soviet ships involved approaching Cuba, our ships were interposed ---There was genuine concern that we could be in a shooting war in a matter of minutes."

Archival Footage
PRESIDENT KENNEDY: "To halt this offensive build up, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port, will they found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, will be turned back."

NARRATOR: After days of negotiations, war was averted when President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Kruschev agreed to the removal of the missile sites from Cuba.

For the next three decades, successive U.S. administrations tried to undermine the regime of Fidel Castro. The United States utilized the economic embargo to isolate Cuba. The CIA used sabotage tactics to disrupt Cuban society. There were also several covert attempts to assassinate Castro.

However, these efforts to destabilize Cuba failed to prevent Castro from supporting revolutionary movements in Latin America and Africa.

By 1992, the Cold War was over and Russia ended most all military and economic contacts with Cuba.

Stating that "Times have changed", Fidel Castro ceased all assistance to revolutionary movements worldwide.

With the loss of Soviet aid, however, Cuba entered an acute economic crisis. Sensing that Cuba was in trouble, the U.S. Congress passed the Cuban Democracy Act, further tightening the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. The increased pressure was designed to "wreak havoc" in Cuba and force Castro's government to make reforms.

Congressman Robert Torricelli, the principal author and proponent of the law, stated publicly that it would bring about the fall of Castro "within weeks'. The Castro regime did not fall.

Instead, U.S. foreign policy backfired once again, creating conditions in Cuba that led to the refugee crisis of 1994, when tens of thousands of Cubans set sail for Florida in small boats and rafts.

Questions were raised about the wisdom of the U.S. embargo and the policy of isolating Cuba.

WHITE HOUSE PRESS CONFERENCE: REVERSAL OF U.S. POLICY TOWARD CUBAN REFUGEES, AUGUST 19, 1994.
HELEN THOMAS: "Mr. President for the last thirty five years we have had an embargo against Cuba and increased the economic burden on .on .. I understand that's why the refugees are coming in...What is the problem with taking a few small albeit brave steps, to negotiate a possible movement toward democracy with Cuba? We've dealt with many communist countries during the last 35 years and we're dealing with them now."

PRESIDENT CLINTON: "The real problem is the stubborn refusal of the Castro regime to have an open democracy and a open economy, and I think the policies that we are following will hasten the day when that occurs. And we follow those policies because we believe they are the ones most likely to promote democracy and ultimately prosperity for the people of Cuba"

HELEN THOMAS: "That's not true with North Korea or China and you're dealing with them everyday."

CLINTON: "I think the circumstances are different and I think our policy is correct."

NARRATOR: Since the refugee crisis, the Clinton Administration and anti-Castro exiles have pushed for continued isolation and pressure on Cuba to shake Castro loose.

However, others suggest that our policy will continue to boomerang.

WHITE: "All human experience tells us that to the extent that you isolate someone is the extent that you harden his position, to the extent that you open him up to other influence, is the extent to which you get mobility, you get flexibility, and you get change."

DEL TORO: "I believe the biggest threat is the economic blockade against Cuba. We consider this to be economic war against our nation."

NARRATOR: General Rosales Del Toro is the Chief of the General Staff for the Cuban military.

GEN. DEL TORO: "For 36 years we have been subjected to constant pressures from the United States, which have included armed aggressions and the stimulation of underground activities in Cuba. Some are widely known and documented like the Bay of Pigs invasion, others are of a covert fashion...mercenary bands and counter-revolutionary activities. But all this has forced our country to adopt a defensive posture that is still present today."

NARRATOR: In order to better understand the Cuba's defensive posture, General Rosales Del Toro allowed Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll and the visiting delegation an exclusive look at today's Cuban armed forces.

CARROLL: "We went to Cuba to update our knowledge of the current state of the Cuban military. We knew basically how they operated and their posture while they were allied with the Soviets. Now that they are on their own we wanted to see what they had. They're small, they're poor, they're very proud, but they're strictly limited to a defense role. They can probably put up a pretty tough fight in defense of the Cuban homeland, but there's nothing they can project against any other nation."

NARRATOR: The delegation visited several different military installations and bases.

At a naval base near Cienfuegos, the group walked along an empty pier that once re-supplied Soviet submarines. The electrical power cables have been severed and the batteries that used to recharge Soviet subs are now being recycled for lead.

At a farm named in honor of the students shot at Kent State University during the Vietnam War, the delegation saw how the military is now helping Cuba cope with the economic crunch of the embargo.

CARROLL: "They also have a very interesting role now, they produce almost twenty percent of all of the food that's grown in Cuba. When the Soviets left, they left Cuba in a very bad state. There was actual hunger. The army has come into that gap and is operating large farms and producing food for the Cuban people."

NARRATOR: If one intention of the U.S. embargo was to alienate the Cuban military from the Cuban people, it has backfired. The Cuban military is fast becoming an asset to the Cuban people by helping with agricultural production, as well as building tourist facilities.

At the Antonio Maceo military Academy, the delegation watched as Cuban troops trained for combat.

Since the early 1980's the Cuban military has been preparing for a massive invasion by the United States. The main threat is conceived as a direct attack on the island by U.S. combat forces from the Guantanamo Naval Base at the Southeast corner of the island and bases nearby in the United States.

CARROLL: "they truly believe that they must prepare to defend against an American attack. They probably believe that that attack will come in the aftermath of some upheaval in Cuba, a political coup, some attack on Castro personally, attempt to take over the Cuban government, which will result in chaos."

NARRATOR: The atmosphere of hostility that exists between the United States and Cuba today has allowed Castro to unite Cubans around the "War of all the People's" strategy of the Cuban military. This strategy prepares the military to fight a highly mobile and sophisticated defensive war that takes advantage of the island's geography.

The Cubans do have some modern weapons like fighter jets, patrol boats, and tanks. But as the delegation witnessed, more attention is focused on training Cuban troops for intense combat at close range.

Castro has used the conflict with the "Yanquis" to mobilize hundreds of thousands of students, workers and peasants into organized territorial militia groups. The militias are trained in the art of guerrilla warfare, and hope to draw the invaders into a long, protracted ground war in the countryside.

Perhaps the most outward sign of Cuba's fear of a U.S. invasion is the network of storage tunnels dug throughout the island.

CARROLL: "The tunnels are all over Cuba, there are reportedly hundreds of kilometers of tunnels which are equipped with the basic weapons of war ----We got to see only one of the tunnels which was probably one of the better prepared and equipped tunnels, but it was full of military equipment, petroleum, medicine, food..".

AMBASSADOR WHITE: "When you isolate a country you breed paranoia".

NARRATOR: Robert White views the tunnels as a tragic reaction to the U.S. policy of isolation toward Cuba.

AMBASSADOR WHITE: "we were shown these caves--these tunnels, that the Cuban youth brigades dig. There are miles of tunnels because they honestly believe that the United States is going to invade. Now you know the Cubans need schools, health centers, all kinds of public buildings and for Cuba to waste its sustenance on building tunnels is justa crying shame, but this is one of the ways that the Cuban military builds up a war neurosis."

CARROLL: "we came away with a clearer picture of this hedgehog. That's what they want to look like a very tough defensive animal, and they call this The War of All the Peoples', they will fight the War of all the Peoples' in defense of the homeland if they are attacked by America."

NARRATOR: Some experts believe the current U.S. policy toward Cuba will decrease the likelihood of peaceful transition to a democratic government in Cuba.

What might be the result of attempts to de-stabilize the Castro regime?

WHITE:"The logical result of the policy that we are following today is violence in the streets and a breakdown in public order. In other words if you starve people out, if you sew dissension with a -- if you encourage provocative acts, then ultimately the system will break down. What will happen if the system breaks down? You'll get violence, you'll get another dictatorship replacing the present dictatorship, you'll send thousands upon thousands of Cuban refugees to the United States."

CARROLL: "I mean the people of Cuba by and large support Castro.[cut] so if we attempt to pressure him out of office and there is a violent upheaval, there will be chaos and the Cuban military think that that's the moment the U.S. will seize upon as an excuse for military action against Cuba. The depth of this fear and this concern was perhaps the greatest impression that I formed of the problems of improving U.S. Cuban relations. We're pressuring them, they're fearful, there's no communications, it's a very negative relationship."

NARRATOR: Even though there are unresolved issues between our two nations, the Cuban military suggested to Admiral Carroll ways that tensions could be reduced through modest military to military contacts.

CARROLL: "they want to offer their services and their information to cooperate with the United States to cut down drug traffic. They're very anxious to cooperate in safety matters, air traffic control they are more than willing, they are anxious to have interaction with the United States military as peers. They don't want the United States dictating, telling them what they must do or not do. They want to be considered neighbors, friendly neighbors, cooperative and helpful."

[ End of Broadcast]

Produced by the Center for Defense Information