Yep, the CIA trained terrorists in Florida
For most Americans, the idea of terrorists in the United States seemed to become real only after September 11th. We remember the Oklahoma City and 1993 World Trade Center bombings, but terrorism still seems to be something wholly of our time.
It would likely be surprising to many to learn that the US government provided training and funding to Cuban revolutionaries in Miami that could only be called terrorists. After the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, it seemed reasonable and conservative to begin training and funding an underground guerrilla force to fight Castro so we wouldn’t have to. Indeed, this is exactly the strategy we have taken around the world many times and what we are currently doing in Syria. The big difference in the 1960s was that these groups were based in the United States. And although many of their attacks took place in Cuba, they committed hundreds of murders and bombings around the United States over several decades. In 1976 alone they blew up a commercial airline flight, killing all 73 on board; set off a car bomb in Washington DC that killed a Chilean diplomat; bombed the United Nations headquarters in New York and the New York Academy of Music Theatre; and committed a dozen other bombing and machine gun attacks around the U.S.
Maybe even more surprising is that some of these groups still exist and still undertake paramilitary training in the Everglades with the dream of someday storming Cuba and retaking the property that was stolen 50 years ago by the Communists. All this time they have had very little concern about law enforcement, sometimes going to far as to hold press conferences bragging about their accomplishments the day after a bombing. Even after 9/11 little attention has been given to this group of homegrown terrorists, even though some of their leaders were still advocating violence as recently as 2008.
In part this is because most of the Cuban revolutionaries these days are much older than one expects of a guerrilla revolutionary group (some reports put the average age in the 60s). Actual violent attacks began gradually falling off in the early 1980s with few if any occurring in the last decade. Their activities are now advertised in local newspapers a week in advance, and the feel of their outings is often more picnic than preparation for war. In the 1990s, in an attempt to draw in more youth, they even advertised weekend training camps as a good way to get exercise and maybe even find a date.
The gradual winding down of these groups offers an illustration of how terrorist groups end that is consistent with current research on the subject. As a nationalist movement with a clear goal, limited objectives that are supported by a large part of the population (overthrow of the Cuban communist leadership and modernization of governance), and general support of the international community it was likely they would achieve their objectives at least in part. For terrorist groups with these characteristics partial or full accomplishment of their goals is a pretty standard piece of bringing the violence to an end. With continuing liberalization of the Cuban economy and less aggressive security policies — not to mention the retirement of Fidel — the group continues to have less and less reason for violence. Over time some members drifted away, and the youth see less reason every year to join up.
But the accommodation of such groups to end their violence should not lead us to believe that this is a realistic strategy across the board. Religious groups with more amorphous or unlimited goals — like our biggest terrorist threats today — are almost never satisfied. Unfortunately, it’s probably wise to prepare ourselves for a long ugly fight with few good options when facing ISIS and other groups that have unlimited visions of the future paired with a religious fervor. Terrorist groups really are different from one another, and need to be handled very differently to bring them to an end. Perhaps the only other lesson we can take away from the Cubans is that any counter terrorism strategy is likely to come with its costs, and that training terrorists in your own backyard just might cost you a few decades of attacks at home.
