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    "localId": "486500592",
    "label": "Report, Central Intelligence Agency, Cuba, Situation Report 29",
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    "id": "486500592",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Report, Central Intelligence Agency, Cuba, Situation Report 29",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/486500592",
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        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 23,
            "logicalDate": "1948-12-23",
            "month": 12,
            "year": 1948
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    "seq": 6,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "SUMMARY\nThe fundamental importance of Cuba to the US derives primarily from (1) its\nability to fill US sugar requirements, and (2) its tactical relationship to US plans for\ndefense of the Panama Canal and the US itself. Any state at war with the US can\nexpect concurrently to be at war with Cuba. Since Cuba is physically incapable of\nprotecting itself from any such potential enemy, and since the US cannot afford ade-\nquate protection to the Panama Canal and its Caribbean interests without the as-\nsurance that Cuba is friendly, the two countries have, through the years, by treaty and\ninformal relationship, closely bound themselves to one another.\nThe two countries are also most intimately linked by their economies. Twenty-\neight percent of Cuba's national income is derived from the sale of sugar to the US.\nIn 1947 the US took 92 percent of Cuba's exports and supplied that country with 84\npercent of its imports. Cuba's prosperity depends almost entirely on the demand for\nsugar in the world market in general and in the US in particular.\nThe Cuban Government consists of a superstructure modeled principally on US\npolitical institutions and rests on a foundation of Roman law and procedure inherited\nfrom Spanish colonial times. At present, the Cuban Government affords the people\na relatively high degree of democracy and, aside from a certain amount of endemic\ncorruption, it constitutes, by Latin American standards, a relatively adequate instru-\nment for the execution of public policy.\nCuba's international position, as a result of the close ties with the US and as a\nresult of the basic fact that Cuba is small and weak and the US large and powerful,\nis subordinate by force of circumstances to that of the US. It is this situation that\nforms the basis of all problems inherent in fundamental relationships between the\ntwo countries.\nCuba's spirit of nationalism now requires that any government in office-if it is\nto survive politically-must (1) deny any inference of inferiority to the US and (2)\nstrive to promote its position as a sovereign and completely independent country\nwithin the family of nations. Cuba is well aware, however, of the benefits derived\nfrom especially close ties with the US and is consequently reluctant to press its\nindependence beyond the point which might jeopardize the support and benefits for\nwhich it must depend on the US. A consequent ambivalence in Cuba's attitude toward\nthe US results, which makes it the more difficult for each administration in Cuba to\nformulate its basic policy somewhere between the urge to assert sovereign rights and\nthe expediency of recognizing the realities of Cuba's relationship to the US. Since\nthe opinion which particular Cubans and individual political parties and groups adopt\ntoward the problem varies, the relationship between the two countries is not constant,\nNote: The intelligence organizations of the Departments of State, Army, Navy, and the Air Force\nhave concurred in this report.\nThe information herein is as of 1 September 1948."
}