Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean by Alex von Tunzelmann – review

America's secret war in the Caribbean from 1957 to 1967 was marked by paranoia and ineptitude, as this excellent history shows
Francois Duvalier
Haitian dictator François Duvalier, aka Papa Doc, carrying a gun as he rides through the Port-au-Prince streets, 1963. Photograph: Michael Rougier/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

For the British, the Caribbean summons up the beaches of innumerable ex-colonies, now Commonwealth countries. Americans remember a different bunch of their very own ex-colonies: the ever-troubled islands of Hispaniola and Cuba. All too often, the histories of these once American-controlled islands are told separately, but Alex von Tunzelmann, making a name for herself as a popular historian of the recent past, has had the clever idea of telling their joint story during the crucial decade between 1957 and 1967.

The impact and legacy of the Cuban revolution of 1959 is a familiar tale, and here it forms the framework of the book, but an intertwined account of the more frightening developments in neighbouring Haiti and the Dominican Republic, superimposed on the strategic cold war battle between John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, brings many events into unusual and fruitful focus.

From today's perspective, when Latin America has largely disappeared from the screen – regarded by the United States at best with benign neglect – it is salutary to recall a time when the region in general, and the Caribbean in particular, was the central preoccupation of western policy. It is also refreshing to have the view of a writer who was not alive at the time, and is unaffected by personal reminiscence. For Alex von Tunzelmann this is history, not current affairs, and as she wades energetically through the archives and the huge library of published works, she cannot help but be amazed by what she finds. Her conclusions are forthright.

"The secret war in the Caribbean destroyed any hope of freedom and democracy in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic," she writes. "It toppled democracies. It supported dictators. It licensed those dictators' worst excesses. It financed terrorism. It set up death squads. It turned Cuba communist, and kept it communist for half a century. It did massive and permanent damage to the international reputation of the United States. It nearly triggered a nuclear holocaust."

So how did this disastrous chain of events come about? The Americans, in this account, are the chief protagonists and chiefly to blame. Long before the success of Castro's revolution in Cuba in January 1959, US policy was motivated by an irrational and distorting fear of communism. The Soviet Union in those days had no interest in Latin America, and communists in the continent were hard to locate. Anti-Americans were there in spades, but genuine communists were few and far between. Where they did not exist, the local dictators were happy to invent them, ensuring for themselves a steady supply of US financial and military support as a result. Men like Rafael Trujillo and Fulgencio Batista, autocratic rulers of the Dominican Republic and Cuba since the 1930s, off and on, were past masters at this tactic; they were joined in 1957 by François Duvalier, the evil genius of Haiti.

Concern about "human rights" was not much in evidence at that time, but several US diplomats were worried by the ferocity of the Caribbean dictators. In June 1958 the US ambassador in Port-au-Prince opposed Duvalier's request for a US military mission, writing that he was "repelled by the thought of a mission here when the jails are crammed with political prisoners". Washington took no notice, and 50 US Marines arrived at the end of the month to bolster Papa Doc's regime. Five years later, when sections of the state department eventually concluded that Duvalier was a dangerous psychopath, an invasion force was prepared and then just as suddenly called off.

Much of Von Tunzelmann's story concentrates on the peculiar nature of Caribbean politics, and she highlights the contradictions in the US approach, contrasting the different strategies towards each country elaborated by the local US embassy, the operatives of the CIA, and the Pentagon back in Washington. Rarely did they work in concert or see eye-to-eye, and successive US presidents made decisions by zigzagging unhappily between them.

Ill-prepared guerrilla expeditions to overthrow dictators, as well as invasions and assassinations, were among the techniques of the times. Castro's expedition was one of several that peppered the Caribbean in this period. His victory encouraged others to repeat the experiment, invariably with tragic results. Washington was eventually faced by a real communist whom they had created through their own ineptitude, backed by a communist superpower armed with nuclear weapons. Terrified by the experience, the US lashed out in all directions, stepping up its secret war against Castro and invading the Dominican Republic to crush a perfectly inoffensive rebellion, all to no purpose. Anti-American sentiment, the only real threat to the United States, grew by leaps and bounds – and has continued to this day.

Assassination was also considered a permissible weapon. The CIA wanted to kill Castro but their efforts failed. They succeeded in 1961 with Rafael Trujillo, gunned down by the beach, and eventually, in November 1963, their very own president became the victim of a pointless murder. The rough justice meted out in the Caribbean struck home.

Richard Gott is the author of Cuba: A New History, published by Yale University Press