Philip Bonsal

Philip Wilson Bonsal (May 22, 1903 – June 28, 1995) was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State. A specialist in Latin American affairs, he served as United States Ambassador to Cuba from February 1959 until October 1960, the first months of the Castro regime.

Early years

Philip Bonsal was born in New York City in 1903. His father was Stephen Bonsal (1865–1951), a well-known journalist who served several years in the U.S. diplomatic corps, wrote several books, and won a Pulitzer Prize.^{[1][lower-alpha 1]} The Bonsals descended from English Quakers who participated in founding the colony of Pennsylvania in 1682.^[2] His mother was Henrietta Morris, a descendant of Gouverneur Morris, a leader in the American Revolution.^[3] He had three brothers.^[4]

Philip Bonsal's early education took place in the Philippines and Switzerland.^[5] He graduated from Yale in 1924.^[6]

He married Margaret Lockett of Knoxville, Tennessee, circa 1929.^[5]

After living in Cuba for several months as a student trainee with the Cuban Telephone Company,^[7] Bonsal worked in Spain and Chile for its parent company, International Telephone & Telegraph, rising to become chief of its Latin American Division. He then entered government service as a specialist in telephone services with the Federal Communications Commission,^[5] where he remained from 1935 to 1937.^[8]

He was fluent in Spanish.^[5]

Diplomatic service

Bonsal joined the State Department in 1937.^[5] He was Vice Consul and Third Secretary in the U.S. embassy in Havana in 1938 and 1939, followed by a year in Washington as Cuban desk officer at the State Department.^[7]

While on the staff of the U.S. embassy in Bolivia in 1944, he tried without success to persuade the U.S. State Department to ignore the rhetoric of Bolivia's radical opposition parties, which he excused as reflexive opposition to the recently ousted U.S.-friendly regime of Enrique Peñaranda. He told Secretary of State Cordell Hull that the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) embodied the "legitimate and respectable ... aspirations of certain sectors of the Bolivian people". Instead the U.S. forced President Gualberto Villarroel to remove members of the MNR from his cabinet.^[9]

He served as an adviser at the 1954 Geneva Conference that considered Korea and Indochina.^[10]

Colombia

President Eisenhower nominated Bonsal as United States Ambassador to Colombia in February 1955.^[10] The U.S. Senate confirmed the appointment on February 11^[11] and he presented his credentials on April 1, 1955. He maintained friendly relations with opposition politicians, angering Colombian dictator General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla,^[5] who persuaded the State Department to re-assign him.^[7]

In January 1957, representing the United States at the United Nations General Assembly's Special Political Committee, he supported a Philippine proposal–endorsed by representatives of Peru, Nepal, and other nations as well–that the U.N. modify its confrontational approach in fighting apartheid in South Africa and shift to tactics that would promote discussion and recognize the problem of racial discrimination in other countries as well.^[12]

President Eisenhower nominated him as United States Ambassador to Bolivia on March 18, 1957.^[13] He concluded his service in Colombia on April 24, 1957.

Bolivia

Bonsal served as United States Ambassador to Bolivia from 1957 to 1959. He wholeheartedly support the U.S. economic assistance program under way there, which he later described as a "pioneer" and "solitary example" of what was required of the U.S. in Latin America.^[7]

Cuba

In January 1959 President Eisenhower named Bonsal United States Ambassador to Cuba just days after Fidel Castro came to power. The New York Times called his appointment "a splendid choice" and described him as "a distinguished career diplomat" with "every qualification that could be asked for the difficult and gratifying task he is taking on".^[14] Bonsal's predecessor Earl E.T. Smith had maintained friendly relations with Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista and resigned nine days following his ouster. Bonsal attempted to find a working arrangement with the leader of the new government. Bonsal admitted that "animosity was inevitable", but he was hopeful that "at some point we can get down to a reasoned dialogue".^[15] Castro was critical of the arrival of Bonsal in the Cuban press comparing him to a colonial Viceroy,^[16] and dialogue was not easily forthcoming.

When Bonsal testified before a closed session of the House Committee on Foreign Relations in May 1959, he explained why the revolution had such widespread popular support: "the corruption and the sadism of many Batista henchmen united most Cubans against the regime". He described how Batista's security forces had killed many while "many, many more were arrested on no charges and kept in jail for indefinite periods".^[17] In August he protested to Secretary of State Herter that Cuban-American relations were being poisoned by the fact that the U.S. was allowing several hundred Batista allies to live in the U.S., which appeared to the Cubans as harboring counter-revolutionaries. He urged they be forced to "move on to some other country".^[18]

On September 3, 1959, Bonsal met with Castro and express concern that American businesses, which had complied fully with the Land Reform Law, were concerned that government agents were acting arbitrarily and without legal sanction. He complained of anti-American comments by Guevara, who was then on a world tour, and Castro advised patience and forbearance with "the exuberances of young and inexperienced revolutionaries".^[19]

In October 1959, Castro called the U.S. "accomplices" of those Batista loyalists forces that had launched air attacks on Cuba. Bonsal lodged a formal protest with Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticóson October 27 and blamed Castro for the deterioration of relations.^[20]

In mid-1960, the Cuban government reached an agreement to sell 700,000 tons of sugar to the Soviet Union, leading to a series of escalating actions by the U.S. and Cuba. The U.S. suspended sugar imports, Cuba nationalized American-owned businesses, and on October 19 the U.S. imposed an embargo on U.S. exports to Cuba except for food and medicine. Bonsal thought the Eisenhower administration was overreacting and forcing Castro into an alliance with the Soviets.^[21]

After the Castro called for a reduction in the staff of the U.S. embassy in Havana, Bonsal was recalled to Washington in October 1960.

Formal diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed shortly after, and US diplomatic representation in Cuba was handled by the United States Interests Section in Havana, part of the embassy of Switzerland. This arrangement lasted until July 20, 2015, with the culmination of the Cuban Thaw.

Some leading members of the United States Congress felt his attempt at a conciliatory approach to the Castro regime represented an appeasement of communism.

Morocco

Bonsal was United States Ambassador to Morocco from 1961 to 1962.

He retired from government service in 1965.^[5]

Later years

As of 1971, he called for "disengagement from a bankrupt Vietnam policy", noting that China and Russia had invested comparatively modest resources in the conflict compared the American loss of 40,000 lives, but hoping that all the major powers would nevertheless recognize that "big-power confrontation by proxy is so repulsively destructive of the welfare of the proxies as to render its repetition elsewhere inconceivable". He also described the Pentagon Papers as "stolen property" and objected to those who ignored the violation of government secrecy standards because the revelations supported their political judgment.^[22]

Bonsal published a memoir, "Cuba, Castro and the United States", in 1971.^[23]

He died of pneumonia in 1995. His wife survived him.^[5]

His papers are held by the Library of Congress.^[24]

See also

• Cuba-United States relations
• History of Cuba

Notes

References

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External links

• U.S. Dept. of State, Office of the Historian: Philip Wilson Bonsal (1903-1995)

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