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Fair Play for Cuba Committee

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Lee Harvey Oswald and others handing out "Fair Play for Cuba" leaflets in New Orleans, August 16, 1963

The Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) was an activist group set up in New York City by Robert Taber in April 1960.[1][2][3]

History

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The group was set up as a result of a reception in the Cuban Consulate General in New York City on 1 April 1960 for "friends of Cuba". The Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party was involved in the organisation.[4]

The FPCC's purpose was to provide grassroots support for the Cuban Revolution against attacks by the United States government, once Fidel Castro began openly stating his commitment to Marxism and began the expropriation and nationalization of Cuban assets belonging to U.S. corporations. The FPCC opposed the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, the imposition of the United States embargo against Cuba, and was sympathetic to the Cuban view during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Its members were placed under surveillance by the FBI.[5]

Subsidiary Fair Play for Cuba groups were set up throughout the United States and Canada.[6][7]

In 1961 the Committee was the target of the FBI's COINTELPRO program.[8] In June 1961 FBI director J. Edgar Hoover approved "establishing counterintelligence programs in Cuban field in an attempt to disillusion current members of such pro-Castro groups as July 26 Movement and Fair Play for Cuba Committee". Among these suggestions was a plot to get leaders arrested by luring them with prostitutes.[9] The FBI had informers in the FPCC, such as Victor Thomas Vicente in the New York chapter,[10] and its members and activities underwent surveillance by the Detroit Police Department.[11] The Committee was the subject of investigation from both the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security and the House Un-American Activities Committee.[12]

By December 1963, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee was defunct, with FBI investigations concluding in 1964.[13]

Members and sponsors

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Archives

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References

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  1. ^ Gott, Richard, Cuba: a new History, Yale University Press, 2004, 177–178
  2. ^ Cassels, Louis (June 17, 1961). "Fair Play for Cuba Committee Activated". Lodi News-Sentinel. Lodi, California. UPI. p. 11. Retrieved May 29, 2013.
  3. ^ Edson, Peter (October 21, 1962). "Edson in Washington; Defectors to Castro". The Park City Daily News. Bowling Green, Kentucky. NEA. p. 21. Retrieved May 29, 2013.
  4. ^ International Trotskyism, 1929-1985 A Documented Analysis of the Movement. Duke University Press. 1991. p. 852.
  5. ^ a b Cold War Stories: William Worthy, the Right to Travel, and Afro-American Reporting on the Cuban Revolution (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-09, retrieved 2020-08-13
  6. ^ Gosse, Van, Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War America, and the Making of the New Left, London: Verso, 1993.
  7. ^ "Pro-Castro Organization Now Defunct". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Vol. 39, no. 87. Sarasota, Florida: Lindsay Newspapers, Inc. UPI. December 29, 1963. p. 20. Retrieved May 18, 2017.
  8. ^ "The Nation: FBI Dirty Tricks". Time. 5 December 1977.
  9. ^ Jacobs, John (21 November 1977). "FBI Proposed Using Prostitutes to Shame Castro Backers". The Washington Post.
  10. ^ Kaiser, David (2009). The Road to Dallas The Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Harvard University Press. p. 289.
  11. ^ Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate: Eight Seventh Congress, First Session Part 3. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1961. p. 273.
  12. ^ McKercher, Asa (2013). "Steamed Up: Domestic Politics, Congress, and Cuba, 1959–1963". Diplomatic History. 38 (3): 599–627.
  13. ^ https://fau.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fau%3A9815 Cold War comes to Ybor City: Tampa Bay's chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
  14. ^ 104-10001-10015 2022 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992. UNCLASSIFIED. FRNAL. BONLY? CON. INITIAL SECRET. archives.gov
  15. ^ "FBI - HSCA Subject Files: Richard Thomas Gibson". maryferrell.org. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  16. ^ a b "Fair Play for Cuba Committee". 1961.
  17. ^ https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/104-10308-10163.pdf [bare URL PDF]
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