"Exilio Unido, ¿Jamás Ha Existido?" Cuban Exiles and the Search for “Total Unity,” 1960–79

According to its introduction, the 2011 book Cubans: an Epic Journey "takes us down the Cubans’ road into exile, dramatizes their struggle for freedom against Castro’s totalitarianism, and [chronicles] the triumphs and tribulations of their diaspora.” Yet as in much writing about the Cuban exile or Cuban-American community, this portrayal underplays the intensity of intracommunal divides by proposing a conciliatory account of anti-Castro resistance.

Drawing on organizational records, personal correspondence, and the Miami press, this paper reveals the degree to which such sanguine narratives simplify a much muddier history. If in the early 1960s large shares of the burgeoning expatriate community coalesced around major initiatives like the Bay of Pigs invasion, by the mid-1970s, Miami's political center had imploded—with some sectors pursuing direct talks with the Cuban government, others opting for terrorist violence, and still others accepting an assimilationist posture as "Cuban-Americans." Yet even in the early 1960s, constant internal infighting and political divisions had plagued exile political organizations—most notably, conflicts between sympathizers of the Batista government and those who believed the revolution had been necessary but "betrayed" to communism. Despite repeated attempts to forge a united front, no one agreed on what unity should look like in practice. As U.S. backing for anti-communist exiles came and went (leaving some groups in the lurch), as new waves of migrants arrived, and as succeeding generations in the community took critical stock of their parents' legacies, the sources of potential friction, politicking, and animosity grew alongside renewed efforts to carry the cause forward. Focusing on the origins and evolution of two exile organizations in particular—the CIA-backed Cuban Revolutionary Council and the understudied anti-communist youth group Agrupación Abdala—this paper shows why, by the end of the 1970s, many exiles easily concluded that the search for "total unity" had proven an unbridled failure.