The then-president of the United States had received word that his daring gambit to deploy 1st Lt. Andrew Rowan on a cloak-and-dagger mission to deliver a message to “General Calixto Garcia, a leader of the Cuba insurgents somewhere in the mountain fastness of Cuba” has been a success.
According to reports, President Donald Trump’s Oval Office predecessor, William McKinley, described Rowan’s flair and ability to seize the initiative when carrying out an otherwise impossible assignment behind enemy lines during the Spanish-American War as the whole drama of American civilization, the apotheosis of the spirit required to make America great again.
“Cuba ought to be free and independent,” McKinley tub-thumped. “The government should be turned over to the Cuban people. The mission of the U.S. is benevolent assimilation.”
Six score and seven years ago, “A Message to Garcia” — Elbert Hubbard’s explosively popular essay explaining the value of executing a task without questioning — had the edge of an autographed Trump Administration executive order and was harder to score than a ticket to Ali-Frazier I.
Hubbard’s essay has aged well. It remains required reading at Russia’s Combined Arms Academy, West Point, and the U.S. Naval Academy.
The rip-roaring 17-page yarn embroidered McKinley’s heroics so deeply into American mythology that Thomas Edison in 1916 and 20th Century Fox in 1936, respectively, produced major motion pictures marqueed “A Message to Garcia.”
Then, last week, a long-time dependable contact with a wicked sense of humor in the Russian government shattered my patriotic confidence in the message.
Then, last week, a senior Russian government official who this reporter has known for decades and comes with a wicked sense of humor and a keen knowledge of American movies shattered my patriotic confidence in the message.
Trushika (not his real name) mentioned in a private communications channel that the Chinese are producing a sequel to Fox’s fawning biopic, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, and Dell Henderson as McKinley.
“Hollywood is out of the picture,” Trushika wisecracked. “Russian television will distribute the movie.”
The film’s pitch orbits around events scheduled to take place in Moscow on Friday, when the leaders of China, Cuba and 17 other countries gather with Russian President Vladimir Putin to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
This is a bigly deal.
To those unfamiliar, Victory Day, a major holiday in Russia, is revered as a sacred moment of national sacrifice and triumph. In the West, May 9 symbolically signaled the onset of the Cold War.
Diplomatic sources on both sides of the Atlantic confirmed the intelligence community’s assessment that China’s paramount leader Xi Jinping will arrive in Moscow with a pot of gold for Cuban President Miquel Díaz-Canel, specifically, a reputedly $30 billion investment package to undergird Xi’s $8 billion down payment designed to transform broke and demoralized Cuba into China’s ersatz 25th province by 2030.
“It’s long been feared,” a Western intelligence official explains. “China turns Cuba from a Russian rust bucket into a high-tech threat on our doorstep.”
Cuba is already a member of China’s 12-year-old and constitutionally mandated Belt and Road initiative, a $2 trillion gambit to bankroll global corridors linked by sea, road, rail, energy, and digital infrastructure.
By the end of May, when market watchers project Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods will ruthlessly curtail imports and free up Xi’s merchant fleet, China will have the maritime cargo capacity to assault Cuba with a nerve not seen since the allies stormed the beaches of Normandy.
But no weapons will be going ashore — think 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis with Chinese offloading wontons instead of Russian warheads.
“It makes sense,” Rep. Stephen Cohen, D-Tenn., says. “Cuba needs help and America doesn’t care. The entire global economy will not buckle under to Trump. The reality is Trump has no control over China and Russia.”
Threatening to penalize carriers who hire Chinese-made ships to move trade, the Trump administration has proposed steep levies on those ships arriving at U.S. ports. Plans call for a service fee of up to $1 million on each vessel. For non-Chinese owned ocean carriers with fleets containing Chinese-built vessels, the service fee would be up to $1.5 million for each U.S. port of call.
According to the Center for International Maritime Security, China has 7,838 merchant vessels ready to hoist anchor. Chinese officials say Trump’s tariffs will not keep the fleet from sailing elsewhere.
To be sure, the United States – which has a mere 185 flagged cargo ships — can offer nothing near the size and scope of China’s Maritime Silk Road.
Make no mistake: Chinese money is totalitarian coin. It flows without any constituent checks-and-balances, allowing the Xi-Putin-Díaz troika to collar Cuba and hound America with a bigotry not seen since the Cold War.
“Bigotry in totalitarian states is not prejudice,” the veteran U.S. intelligence analyst explained. “It’s a commitment to erase from the face of the earth people that you don’t happen to like.”
So, what’s the new “Message to Garcia?”
The Western boffins behind the scenes say “Xi tells Trump to give him Taiwan and he’ll leave Cuba alone” is the most likely communiqué.
Trushika offered a P.S. snarked in a song by the Andrews Sisters: “Trump is in no position to counter China’s strategy short of an invasion. You’ll be drinking rum and Coca-Cola, working for the Chinese yuan.”
A. Craig Copetas is an award-winning reporter, writer and author who has more than a half century covering news and politics for publications including Rolling Stone, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Paris.
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