TheFair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) was anactivist group set up inNew York City byRobert Taber in April 1960.[1][2][3] The FPCC's purpose was to providegrassroots support for theCuban Revolution against attacks by theUnited States government. It was active in both the US and Canada.
The group was set up as a result of a reception in the CubanConsulate General inNew York City on 1 April 1960 for "friends of Cuba". The TrotskyistSocialist Workers Party was involved in the organisation.[4]
The FPCC's purpose was to providegrassroots support for theCuban Revolution against attacks by theUnited States government, onceFidel Castro began openly stating his commitment toMarxism and began theexpropriation andnationalization of Cuban assets belonging to U.S. corporations. The FPCC opposed theBay of Pigs invasion of 1961, the imposition of theUnited States embargo against Cuba, and was sympathetic to the Cuban view during theCuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Its members were placed under surveillance by theFBI.[5]
The group organised trips to Cuba and at one point had dozens of chapters across the USA.[6] The committee was open to members of all races, and on the first anniversary of the Cuban Revolution a group of black civil rights activists, composed ofHarold Cruse,Amiri Baraka,Julian Mayfield andJohn Henrik Clarke, travelled toHavana in a trip organised by the FPCC.[7]
Subsidiary Fair Play for Cuba groups were set up throughout theUnited States andCanada.[8][9]
In Canada the organisation had an office inToronto, which obtained and distributed pro-Castro literature coming from Cuba itself. It also produced its own literature based upon testimonies from those who had travelled to Cuba and wanted to report their experiences on the island.[10] The first Canadian chapter was founded by Vernel and Anne Olson, they held their first meeting in February 1961 at the First Unitarian Church in Toronto.[11]
On May 26, 1963,Lee Harvey Oswald wrote to the New York City headquarters of FPCC, proposing to rent "a small office at my own expense for the purpose of forming a FPCC branch here in New Orleans".[12] Three days later, the FPCC responded to Oswald's letter advising against opening a New Orleans office "at least not ... at the very beginning".[13] In a follow-up letter, Oswald replied, "Against your advice, I have decided to take an office from the very beginning."[14] On May 29, Oswald ordered the following items from a local printer: 500 application forms, 300 membership cards, and 1,000 leaflets with the heading, "Hands Off Cuba".[15]
According to anti-Castro militantCarlos Bringuier, Oswald visited him on August 5 and 6 at a store he owned in New Orleans. Bringuier was the New Orleans delegate for the anti-Castro organizationDirectorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE). Bringuier would later tell theWarren Commission that he believed Oswald's visits were an attempt by Oswald to infiltrate his group.[16] On August 9, Oswald turned up in downtown New Orleans handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets. Bringuier confronted Oswald, claiming he was tipped off about Oswald's leafleting by a friend. A scuffle ensued and Oswald, Bringuier, and two of Bringuier's friends were arrested for disturbing the peace.[17][18] Prior to leaving the police station, Oswald requested to speak with an FBI agent.[19] Oswald told the agent that he was a member of the New Orleans branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee which he claimed had 35 members and was led by A. J. Hidell.[19] In fact, Oswald was the branch's only member and it had never been chartered by the national organization.[20]
On 16 August Oswald returned to pamphleteering, this time with two others and a camera crew from New Orleans television station WDSU. The two others were an unidentified Cuban man and Charles Hall Steele Jr., who Oswald had found at an employment office and paid $2 for fifteen minutes of his time.[21][22]
In 1961 the committee was the target of the FBI'sCOINTELPRO program, with FBI directorJ. Edgar Hoover describing the group as "one of the main outlets in this country for pro-Castro propaganda".[23][24] In June 1961 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.[25] In December 1961 the FBI mailed anonymous leaflets to select members of the organisation "for [the] purpose of disrupting FPCC and causing split between FPCC and its Socialist Workers Party (SWP) supporters", a tactic they noted was "very effective". Due to the help of an informant the FBI also possessed photographs of the FPCC financial records and themailing list of the organisation.[26]
The FBI had informers in the FPCC, such as Victor Thomas Vicente in the New York chapter,[27] and its members and activities underwent surveillance by theDetroit Police Department.[28] The committee was the subject of investigation from both theSenate Subcommittee on Internal Security and theHouse Un-American Activities Committee.[29]CIA interest in the FPCC was also documented by theChurch Committee in 1975. It uncovered a memo dated to 16 September 1963 which stated that the CIA is "giving some thought to planting deceptive information which might embarrass the Committee in areas where it does have some support".[30]
By December 1963, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee was defunct, largely in part to the fallout from theassassination of John F. Kennedy by FPCC member, Lee Harvey Oswald. FBI investigations concluded in 1964.[31][32] The Committee was subsequently forgotten and on the rare occasions it was mentioned by historians, it was in reference to Oswald's membership.[33]
