Granma INT'L: Havana. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark interviewed
Havana. December 4, 2013
Sound solidarity
• Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark
interviewed during recent International Colloquium for
the Liberation of the Five in HolguÃn
Daylén Vega and Yosbel BullaÃn
(Retranslated from the Spanish)
RAMSEY Clark came to Cuba in November, in the context of the 9th International Colloquium for the Liberation of the Five and Against Terrorism. We met with him one afternoon, when he found time within his full agenda to grant us an interview. He was wearing with pride the Order of Solidarity medal presented to him by Irma Sehwerert, the mother of René González, and smiled with the wisdom of a man of much experience. After a handshake and cordial greetings, the former U.S. Attorney General talked to us without further ado.
When did Ramsey Clark come to know Cuba?
I was brought to Cuba as a very young child, I was five years old and my older brother, who was seven, had recently died of meningitis. A year later, to get over the shock, we came to Cuba on vacation. By chance, some time later, it was Cuba which produced the best vaccine to cure this illness.
Then I returned after leaving the Marines, during which time I was involved in the December 1941 Pearl Harbor incident. After leaving the Marines it was already very late to enter University, I began to do work for the Army and came to Cuba on four occasions.
In those days I saw that corruption and prostitution were very serious problems. The streetcars were the property of one individual, a Mr. Campbell from Miami and we saw these and other manifestations of U.S. interference, gangsters and the like.
When the Bay of Pigs attack took place in 1961, during the Kennedy administration, you were U.S. Attorney General. In what way did those events mark you?
When the Bay of Pigs happened I wrote a note to the President: "The greatest advantage you have about things is to be ignorant of certain facts," and I do believe that Kennedy was unaware of these plans, he didn’t realize that these things had been in progress for a long time, and he took office beginning January 1961.
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